


A Together Peace

by lillianempire



Category: A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Genre: 1940s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gene breaks his leg, Anal Sex, Angst and Romance, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, But he's still kind of an asshole, Declarations Of Love, Drama, Drama & Romance, Dysfunctional Family, Falling In Love, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Finny has to help, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Forbidden Love, Friendship/Love, Gay, Gay Male Character, Gay Romance, Gay Sex, Gen, Gene is honest with himself and his feelings, Geneas, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Other, Period-Typical Homophobia, Romance, Secret Relationship, Semi-Public Sex, Semi-smutty, Sexual Content, Sexual Identity, Sibling Rivalry, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenage Drama, Twins, What could possibly happen, World War II, ginny-ASP, historical gay romance, m/m romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:23:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 114,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianempire/pseuds/lillianempire
Summary: It all starts out the same. Gene and Finny climb up the tree that fateful day. Finny is getting ready to jump. Gene bends his knees...But Finny doesn't fall.Gene does.What, oh, what could possibly happen? Does Gene get some sense knocked into him? Will he come to terms with his feelings? Will he be a more reliable narrator and tell us the truth? Because Gene and Finny belong together. You know it, I know it, and Mariah Carey even knows it.This is a slow-burning story with mature themes and language. Trigger warnings for alcoholism.***Now COMPLETE***============================================================================M/M Romance | Very long, novel-length read: 10-12 hours | Average 6,000 words per chapter
Relationships: Gene Forrester/Phineas "Finny"
Comments: 89
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

I don’t remember it all at first.

There was a sound, a throbbing and melting sound, pulsating through my brain. There was a cry, a shout. There was a feeling of weightlessness, of becoming one with the air, of laying upon a bed of vapor, becoming, morphing, then a hard, cold slam against my body.

Black.

Everything went black.

I hear voices. It’s like the volume of the radio slowly coming up, louder, softness into hardness. I recognize some of them. I hear my name. Darkness to light. My eyes fly open and everything is so bright. Bright as the brightest day. It hurts.

“Gene?”

My name sounds distorted. The radio has lost signal and there’s static.

“Gene!”

My eyes focus, clarity, sharpening into an image of Dr. Stanpole standing over me. “Gene?”

Finny’s on the other side of him, his face twisted up with fear. Stanpole keeps pushing him away from me.

“Gene!” Finny says. “Gene, are you okay?”

I try to sit up, but Stanpole doesn’t let me. That’s when I feel it. A pain like no other. Sharp. With teeth, with rotting, sharp teeth tearing into me. I choke out a noise and Stanpole’s face moves, his mouth moving, making shapes, a hole.

“Gene, lay back down. It’s okay.”

“Is he okay?” Finny cries.

There’s a buzzing in my ear. Just one ear. I try to reach up and swat away the insect that’s causing it, but my hand is held down fast. _Fast_. Everything moves so fast. Dr. Stanpole is just a hole; a talking hole and I can’t comprehend him.

“….fell and broke your leg…”

Is he speaking to me? Why does he look so bright? Finny’s face looks like a halo.

“…you to lie still, okay? This will only…”

My mouth moves like the wooden jaw of a puppet. I try to imitate the movements he is making. “…broken…”

“Gene…hold still…you’re…needle…I’ll…”

I don’t want to listen to it anymore. I close my eyes and try to turn the knob, change the station, but I am held down. I get one last vision before it all goes black again. I get the sight of Finny’s face, his features jagged with horror, and he gets smaller and smaller, and I get heavier and heavier until I’m just a motionless thing, floating inside a stone.

* * *

My eyes open.

This time I see a ceiling. White and plaster. I turn my head to one side and see curtains drawn over a window. It doesn’t keep out the sunlight that’s dimmed. I don’t know what time it is. Something about the way I’m laying is off. I lift my head and see my right leg lifted up with two thin slabs of wood on either side. It’s red, purplish, and swollen. I can hardly even feel it. I have a hard time connecting vision to touch.

I groan out something. Trying to talk. There’s a step on the other side of the room and Finny’s face appears over me.

“Gene?”

I feel a cold squeeze around my insides. That’s where I was. That’s where it happened. We’d climbed the tree. We were going to jump off. Then I…

“Oh, God,” he says, his expression distraught. “I’m so sorry, Gene. I’m so, so sorry. I tried to reach for you. I really did. But you just fell, you just slipped off, and…” He shakes his head and it looks like he actually might cry. “God, I’m so sorry.”

I don’t know whether I’m alarmed over the fact that he’s going to cry or his version of the events. He didn’t see it, then. He didn’t see me bending my knees, getting ready to…I don’t even know what I was getting ready to do. Maybe I wasn’t going to do anything. Maybe I was just trying to find better footing on the branch. Maybe that’s all it was. Maybe I’m in the middle of a nightmare, and I’m going to wake up.

I find my voice. “What happened?”

Finny’s hair is damp and his eyes are like two sparkling emeralds staring down at me. “You don’t remember? Oh no! Did you lose your memory, too?”

“Weren’t we in the tree?”

“Yes. The tree. Then you, I don’t know. I think you slipped. I reached out to grab you, but I didn’t see it in time. You were behind me. And you just fell off.” I’ve never seen such anxiety around his eyes. “It was awful, just this awful…thud.” He closes his eyes, and I’m somewhere between shock and annoyance to see a tear leak out. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I just wasn’t quick enough.”

I don’t have the capacity to weigh out his words or remorse. My brain feels incredibly fuzzy. But I decide to shut down his dramatics before I have to deal with it. “You don’t have to be sorry about anything.” I shift in the awkward position I’m in. “It was just an accident.”

I don’t know why I’m being so flippant. I’m really hurt. I’ve never broken a single bone in my body before. There was that one time I got into a fight with my older brother, Tanner. He pushed me down two steps on our front porch when I was seven and I bruised my tail bone. This is hardly the same thing.

“What are you doing in here?” Stanpole appears in the doorway holding a syringe.

“I just wanted to see if he was okay,” Finny replies.

“No visitors, Phineas. I was very clear.” He guides Finny towards the door. “You can come see him tomorrow.”

“But I’m leaving tomorrow. We all are. For vacation.”

“Gene will be just fine, but he needs his rest.”

Finny gives me another worried look and I stare back at him blankly. I feel strange. It must be the painkillers Dr. Stanpole injected me with earlier. My brain feels sluggish.

And I don’t like seeing Finny this way. And why is he apologizing to me? Then I remember that just a few weeks ago I almost fell and he grabbed me. Shame is hardly the word for it.

“Gene needs to rest,” Stanpole says firmly.

Finny’s head hangs. “I understand.”

“You can some see him in the morning,” Stanpole offers. “First thing.”

Finny hesitates, then nods his head in agreement. He gives me one last look of utter sorrow and part of me wants to smack it right off. Of course he’s upset. This is exactly what he’d do. Perfectly imperfect Phineas who does no wrong and breaks records and creates stupid societies would wallow in sadness to see his “best pal” with a broken leg. Of course he would, and as much as everyone loves him now, they’re going to love him even more. His star just continues to rise while mine fell with a thud, if it was ever going to rise at all.

Dr. Stanpole sits next to the bed. “Are you feeling okay? Need anymore?” He holds up the syringe.

I shake my head.

“It’s not as bad as it seems.” He clears his throat. “It’s a clean break. I set the bone, but you’ll need to see a surgeon when you get home.”

“Home?” My voice sounds thin, and I feel detached. Like my head is touching the ceiling.

“I sent a telegram to your father. They’re on their way.”

I shut my eyes and sink back into the pillows. Before this happened, I was going to ride the train home alone. I like traveling alone. But with the two of them it was going to be hell going back. “I was just going to take the train. Can’t you give me some crutches or something?”

“You can’t ride a train like this.”

I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling again. The plaster looks like its moving. “How long?”

“How long for what?”

“How long am I going to be like this?”

“Well,” he perches on the chair and begins speaking like a lecturer. “Leg breaks take a while to heal. Several months. And like I said: it was a good, clean break. You’re lucky.”

Good and clean. What does he mean by that? It’s like he’s suggesting Finny and I were merely having good, clean fun. Like that’s all it was. Just two school boys tree-climbing and river-jumping without a care in the world. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can believe it.

“Here.” He reaches in his pocket for two white pills and fetches a glass of water. “These will help you sleep.”

I swallow them down and the ceiling gets all wavy again. Stanpole tells me to get some rest, he’ll be just down the hall, and assures me I’ll be up and walking around in no time.

 _No time_.

It’s those last two words that echos in the room long after he’s gone. They ricochet off the corners, dive down from the ceiling, and bounce off the linoleum. _No time_. There is no time. It’s paused and focused at the moment on the tree where I can’t seem to put the pieces together. Arcing out at a wide angle, I’m standing there, Finny’s getting ready to make the plunge. It feels like a cloak has been thrown over me, cold and heavy and wet. I was going to shake him off. I was going to jounce that limb and make him - I was going to -

My thoughts begin to fade as the sleeping pills take me under, but I reassure myself, I do it over and over, in no time. _No time like the present!_

And time stops.

No one ever has to know.

* * *

Light comes through my eyelids.

There’s birdsong just outside the window. I smell coffee, antiseptic, and just-washed cotton. I fell asleep with one arm at my side and the other slung across my chest. It’s that arm I move slowly - because it feels like a heavy slab of stone - and I hear a chair creak mixing with the birds.

“Oh good. You’re awake.”

My eyes fling open at the sound of my sister’s voice. I spot her sitting on the other side of the room, a tiny black bag at her feet and a smart green velvet hat on her head.

“What are you doing here?” I mumble.

She stands up and comes over to the bed. “I haven’t heard from you in months. What’s the matter with you that you can’t write once in a while? Then we finally get a telegram and next thing I know momma and daddy are having some kind of fit over you falling and breaking your leg. I just wanted to see if it was true.” She flicks her eyes over to my leg. “And so it is.”

Althea was born just three and a half minutes before me, but she acts like it was three and a half years. _We’re twins!_ I used to holler at her when she’d boss me into doing something or other for her. _We were born at the same time!_

 _Nope,_ she’d say. _I pushed you out of the way, and you had no choice but to come out last._

She still says it. I’ll bet before the end of the day she says it. “Momma and dad sent you to get me?”

“No, they’re here. I’m fairly sure that poor guy in the white coat is going to pull his hair out after they get done with him.”

I mumble a curse under my breath. She doesn’t rebuke me.

“Does it hurt?” Althea sits down beside the bed. I see her hair has gotten longer, and yesterday’s rag curls are coming undone. Her hair is as thick and straight as mine, which she hates, but its faded from a deep hickory into a cool caramel over the years. That, she loves. Except for when we were thirteen and she tried to make herself a blond. She was unsuccessful.

“Not right now. I got a shot.” I try to sit up, and she grabs a pillow to help me. “I might need another one soon.”

“I’ll tell daddy not to take any sudden turns.”

“Oh, God. They _drove_?”

She shrugs. “You can’t get on a train.” She points to my leg. “We’d have to buy you two seats.”

I wince at the thought of being stuck with my parents for hours in a car. It’s a long ride and judging by the wrinkles on Althea’s dress they must have driven all night. And I really hate how she always uses _we_ like she and our parents are in on some conspiratorial plan to raise us all.

“You left Randy at home?”

“Yes. With Cora. He’s fine. He knows you’re not dead, so he’s fine.”

Randy - Randolph if my mother is speaking to anyone in her Ladies’ Reading Guild - is only ten. Althea and I are fairly certain he was just as much of a surprise as we were. I’m relieved they didn’t force him to ride to Devon, too.

Althea eyes the wooden contraption on my leg. “Looks like someone was trying to set up a tent.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I say sardonically.

She giggles. “Oh come on now! Can’t you see the humor in it? Just imagine if it was me. You’d say the same thing.”

“I’d say: ‘Oh no, Althea, you’re hurt. Do you need anything’?”

“That’s not what you’d say.”

“That’s exactly what I would say.”

Before she can reply, there are footfalls in the hall and Dr. Stanpole and our parents appear. The two scions of Montgomery gentility swoop into the room in a duet of complaining, head-shaking, mink, fine satin, and pin stripes.

“You tell them! You tell them, Herman! You just tell them we’re not paying all this money to bring home our injured child!” My mother is talking over my father’s placating okays and yes, yes, yeses while Stanpole tries to interject. “He could have broken his back. Broke his _back_! Where are all the chaperons?” She turns to Stanpole. “Aren’t there teachers? Where were the teachers?”

“The instructors -”

“You shouldn’t let them climb trees! Eugene is sixteen! He shouldn’t be climbing trees anymore!”

Althea and I exchange a look, point down our chins, and take our usual silent posture when our mother is on a roll. She’s got her big purse with the gold clasps, and I’m wondering how much of that pewter flask she’s drank since yesterday. Sounds like not enough.

“It’s all right,” my father jumps in. “We’ll get him home. It’s all right.”

They haven’t made one glance in my direction yet, and Stanpole looks like he might have an embolism. I send him a silent apology.

“Oh, we’ll get him home,” says my mother. “Eugene!” She whips around and the ostrich feathers in her hat twitch from the draft. “Where’s that horrible boy that pushed you out of the tree? I’d like to have a few words with _his_ mother.”

My face flames up hot. “Nobody pushed me. He didn’t push me. I just fell. An accident.”

“Nobody pushed him,” Stanpole finally gets in. “There’s a tree out by the river that some of the upperclassmen climb. Gene lost his footing and fell.”

If Stanpole says it, then it must be true. I wasn’t going to do anything. I wasn’t thinking anything. Now that the words are out of Stanpole’s mouth, I accept this as gospel. I nod my head emphatically.

My mother’s face pinches. “Why are you climbing trees, Eugene? We didn’t send you here to behave like some field hand loitering around the delta.”

“He’s sixteen, Leticia.” My father tugs at his tie, signaling he’s had about enough of this. “It’s what boys do. All boys do stupid things.”

“Are you calling him stupid?” My mother fires back. “My son isn’t stupid!”

“That is _not at all_ what I just said!”

Althea wrinkles her nose and gives me a grin. She gets up and goes over to our parents. “Momma, we ought to let Dr. Stanpole tend to Gene while we get his things. Lets go to his dormitory and let daddy and Dr. Stanpole have a chat.”

I send up a silent prayer that Finny isn’t there. God, I hope he isn’t there. I don’t need to endure anymore humiliation.

Althea pulls our mother from the room, another burst of outrage echoing down the hall. My father finally looks over at me.

“So,” he says. “Thought you’d climb a tree and jump off?”

I nod.

He looks at the brace like it just insulted him. “Well, it’ll heal up soon.” He turns to Stanpole. “You don’t reckon the war department will reject him for a leg-break, do you? Even after it heals?”

Stanpole clears his throat, happy to be asked a question like a professional rather than berated like a child. “I don’t believe so. It’s a good, clean break.” Then he launches into his doctor talk, my father listening like he expects Stanpole to offer him a nice deal on some antiques. I don’t listen to it. There’s a dull throb beginning in my right leg, not nearly as sharp and awful as yesterday, and I’m hoping Stanpole drugs me up good for the long ride home. I’ll need it.

After Stanpole has properly briefed my father on my chances for a “full recovery” and assured him that I’ll be able to “bear arms and fight just like any other boy” my father makes his exit.

Stanpole heaves a big sigh and looks over at me. “I really hope your vacation is very short.”

I heave a big sigh right back. “Me too.”

* * *

They put me in a wheelchair.

Stanpole pulls up one of the leg supports so my brace will fit comfortably. It’s not comfortable at all. Althea makes it worse as she attempts to maneuver out the door and over to the car. I swear she hits every bump she can find.

“Be careful!” I hiss at her.

“Hold your tongue. I’m being careful!” She pauses at the curb and sizes it up. “I reckon we’ll have to lift you.”

“Please don’t do that.”

Already, I’m being gawked at by about three dozen of my classmates. I wouldn’t care so much if Stanpole had given me the good stuff. He gave me a tonic for the pain and a bottle of some terrible-tasting syrup for the ride. There’s a detached ache in my leg that my brain can’t quite grasp. It’s more annoying than anything else. Like a fly buzzing around my head.

Behind us our mother is making some remark about it being so hot and she wore her mink and all. Why’s it so hot up here? She was expecting a chill.

“It’s almost August, Leticia,” my father mutters. “It isn’t even snowing in Canada yet.”

“We ought to send Eugene to school in Canada. He can’t go climbing trees when they’re frozen stiff. You hear me, Eugene?” One of her gloved fingers taps my shoulder. “Don’t you ever climb another tree ever again. Tanner was at the top of his class and working for Mr. Offenbach when he was your age. He didn’t spend his precious time on this kind of nonsense and look at him now.”

I can’t look at him, because Tanner is over in France fighting Nazis. That’s almost what I say, but I hold my tongue. Tanner is close to ten years older than Althea and I. My parents must have been glowing like giant moons when he was born. Both of my father’s brothers had four girls apiece, but my dad had the boy. A Forrester boy. A first-born, coveted, marine-sergeant boy. A boy to carry on the family name and keep us all from shriveling out of the old family stock in the greater Montgomery area. In short: Tanner is the heir, I’m the spare, and Althea and Randy are practically useless.

“Gene!”

I don’t turn my head or even look up. I can see Finny bounding over to us in my periphery. I don’t think ignoring him will make him go away, but I can give it a shot.

“Oh, I’m so glad I caught you before you left,” Finny says, a little out of breath. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am again.” He looks me over in the chair, my right leg sticking out like I might go jousting in the courtyard. If my face is as red as it feels, then I must look like a strawberry with a toothpick stuck in it.

“I can’t believe this,” Finny continues. “I really can’t believe this. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

I give him a look to shut him up, but he’s not catching on. Luckily my parents are arguing about which downstairs room to put me in, and Stanpole is pretending to moderate. Althea clears her throat.

I turn to look up at her. She’s smiling warmly at Finny, her big blue-gray eyes ogling him in his green button-down just a shade darker than his eyes and why do I even notice?

I sigh. “This is my sister, Althea. Althea, this is Phineas, my roommate.”

“Nice to meet you,” Finny says brightly, offering Althea his hand.

“It’s a pleasure,” Althea replies, sticking out her daintily gloved hand.

Finny doesn’t know there’s a method to shaking the hand of a Montgomery debutante, so it’s awkward for a second. I have enough embarrassment for all three of us.

“Why, Gene, I didn’t know you had a sister.” Finny gives me a little nudge. “I’ve got a sister, too, remember? I didn’t know we had this in common.”

I’ve turned away from them, but I can hear the false smile plastered on Althea’s face. “Why, yes. We’re twins in fact. But I was born first. I just pushed Gene out of the way, and he had no choice but to come out last.”

“There it is,” I mutter.

“Yes, I see it now.” I sense Finny standing back to look us over. “You do have similar qualities. What a lucky thing! I’ve always wanted a twin brother.”

“Oh, God,” I mumble.

“Say, would you mind giving us a hand?” Althea says. “We need to lift Gene’s chair to get him over the curb.”

I begin shaking my head, but Althea either doesn’t see or doesn’t care. Nononononono. No. God, please, no.

Althea takes the handle bars in the back. Finny comes around in front to take hold of the wheels, and there’s his face, his perfect, maddeningly perfect, sun-kissed face with those sparkling green eyes looking right at me with sympathy and worry and something else I can’t quite catch.

They haven’t got me an inch off the ground before Brinker comes running over and shoos Althea away.

“I wouldn’t dream of letting a pretty young lady like you do this,” he says, his voice as rich as chocolate.

Althea steps back with a flattered giggle. Finny and Brinker lift me up, carry me over the curb, and my humiliation is complete and eternal when they set me back down.

“Brinker Hadley.” The giant grin in his voice is apparent.

“Althea Forrester.” She sticks out her hand.

“Why yes you are,” he says softly. Brinker gets the handshake perfect.

While Brinker and Althea flirt, I notice there’s about six Devon boys hovering by at the sight of a girl on school property. I can tell Althea is enjoying it immensely. I spot Leper shuffling his feet by a shrub, looking up occasionally with big puppy eyes. I don’t know whether to feel protective or relieved. At least her Southern charms and batting eyelashes are taking everyone’s attention off of me.

“You okay, Gene?” Finny asks.

Except for him.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Listen.” He kneels down so he’s eye level with me, and I notice he’s slicked back his hair and the front of his shirt has come un-tucked. I have a strange urge to fix it for him. “I’ll write you as soon as I get to Boston. Will you write me back? I hope you get some rest. This is going to be a long month and,” he lays a hand on my good leg and I feel an odd tingle, “if there’s anything, anything at all you need, will you let me know?”

I don’t like it. But I do kind of like it. I don’t like that I kind of like it. He’s put his arm around my shoulder before. He’s done those friendly things before. Friendly taps in jest within the confines of some unofficial understanding between us. It was always one part comfort and one part envy. Right now, it’s one part tingle and one part get-your-hand-off-me-you-impossibly-perfect-bastard.

“Thank you,” I manage. “Thanks, Finny, but I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Of course you will.” He smiles. “But if it’s all the same, I’d like to know how you’re doing. It would be sensational to get a letter from you.”

Why does he have to say it like that? My stomach does a full turn, and he’s looking at me like I’m something to be praised. Like a hero. I’m not a hero. I avert my gaze. He has no idea what I really am.

“Thank you for your help, Phineas,” Althea chirps, pushing me towards the car. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Well, sure, sure. Anytime.” He trails along beside us. “You want some help getting into the car, Gene? Gene and I are best friends. I talked him into jumping from the tree, and I couldn’t feel anymore terrible about it.”

“It was just an accident.” Althea says. “Besides, Gene’s never been the tree-climbing type. He always liked to stay in the library with his lemonade and a good book.”

“I’m sitting right here,” I snap.

“Oh, now, it’s the truth.” Althea stops the chair at my father’s red Chevrolet. “It’s not a bad thing at all.”

Finny looks me dead in the eye. “No. Not at all.”

I turn to see my mother and father approaching, still arguing, and Stanpole lagging behind. He must have talked them out of a lawsuit. Brinker’s still standing on the sidewalk, his eyes all mopey-dopey, and his hand held up in a wave.

Althea opens the back passenger door and puts a finger to her chin. “All right. I think the best way is to somehow turn you this way.” She points. “Phineas, could I trouble you for your help again?”

“Sure!”

“No, no,” I interject, my ears burning like crazy. “Just push me beside the seat, and I’ll slide in.”

“Not with your leg like that.” Althea goes over to the driver’s side and opens that door. She and Finny discuss the logistics and I look around in desperation for someone to save me from this. Brinker is no help. Cat’s got his tongue and Althea’s figure’s got his crotch. Leper’s left the shrubs and has wandered off somewhere.

Before I can protest, Finny loops his arms under mine and lifts. My back is against his chest and his breath is on my neck. My heart thuds like a lunatic trying to break out of a cell.

I don’t like it.

But I do kind of like it.

Damn him and his strong arms. Damn him and his helpfulness. Damn him and his scent of fresh-cut grass and sun-dried linen and what the hell am I even thinking?

Althea leans through the driver’s side to help guide me in and they manage not to bump my broken leg too bad.

“All set, Gene.” Finny gives my shoulder a squeeze and shuts the door. Althea shuts the other door. I turn to look out the back at them talking as our parents approach. Althea gives him a wave and Stanpole a wave. They all get in the car and Althea gingerly lays my legs across her lap.

“He’s awfully nice. And dreamy to boot.”

“No he’s not,” I say quickly. “He’s…I mean, yes he is nice. But he’s…and he’s…”

“What?” She turns to look where I’m looking, which is at Finny standing in the parking lot watching us drive away. “Oh no, not him. _Him_.” She points to Brinker who still has a stupid smile on his face.

“Yeah, but he’s…he’s a…” My heart is still going a million miles a minute. I keep my eyes on Finny as he gets smaller and smaller.

His scent is still on me and he’s standing in sunshine, shirt un-tucked, eyes just sparkling, and my heart just pounding.


	2. Chapter 2

I end up sleeping in the parlor.

Cora found a cot in a closet upstairs. I haven’t slept well on it at all and the heavy cast on my leg doesn’t help. The surgeon informed my parents I could use the crutches but try to keep my movements minimal. I haven’t used them once. They sit by the window as I sit in the wheelchair, staring at the backyard. The cast is awful. Heavy, sweaty, and itchy. God, it’s so itchy, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. Althea suggested a length of Popsicle sticks glued together. Randy found a long twig out in the yard. Sometimes I just let it itch.

Althea comes into the library in a blue gingham dress with a matching bow in her hair. I stare out at the long line of crepe myrtles Great-Grandpa Forrester put there way back when.

“Caroline’s coming over later,” she says, sitting down at the writing desk. She has her fist full of mail. “She was worried sick about you.”

“That’s nice.”

Great-Grandpa Forrester planted the first crepe myrtle when he brought home his first Mississippi bride. He planted the second with their first child, third with the second child, so on and so forth. By the time he married his third Mississippi bride, there were twenty-seven trees in the yard. When he was seventy, he started losing his mind, went through weird spells where he thought he was a lion, and had them all dug up. Our Great Aunt Eunice had them all planted back, only she didn’t do it in the right order. The trees are all at different stages of growth, creating a zigzag pattern against the sky. Great-Grandpa Forrester was buried in his Confederate uniform, and I’m pretty sure he died from syphilis.

I’d forgotten about the trees, though. I was thinking about other things.

Not-so-good things.

“You want to try the crutches later?” Althea says, sorting through the mail. “You must do it at some point.”

“I don’t know.” I shrug.

It’s the trees. Their branches and pretty plum, fuchsia, and white buds swaying in the breeze. They’re not strong or big enough to climb. Althea used to crawl under them when we were little. She picked up worms and threw them at me. Tanner carved his initials with his girlfriend’s on one and our father nearly had a heart attack. I used to lay under them when our mother got into the bourbon and listened to her berate Cora for doing absolutely nothing. Trees can have good memories. Semi-good memories. They don’t all have to be bad.

“You got a letter.” Althea stands up and brings it to me. “Phineas.” She enunciates each syllable.

I hold it out from me and stare down at Finny’s slanted print. I set it on my lap and decide to read it later. Alone.

Althea gets out some stationary and a pen. She spreads everything out nice and neat on the desk. “Now,” she taps the pen to her chin. “What should I write?”

“To who?”

“Soldiers.”

“Which soldiers?”

“I’ve been writing about ten of them now. It’s a thing Caroline and I do. It’s for morale. The Girls’ Letter Writing Club at school.”

I snort. “Seriously?”

“Yes, well I can’t do anything else. Momma won’t let me help out at the armory. She says it’ll ruin my hands and Richie Camden won’t marry me if I’ve got ugly fingernails.” She rolls her eyes. “Meanwhile all that ambrosia wine is ruining her complexion.”

“Is it wine now?” I wheel myself over to her.

“Wine, bourbon. Sometimes whiskey.” She dips her pen into the ink and starts scribbling.

“Why don’t you just write Tanner?”

“I do. You should write him, too. I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.”

“I’m sure momma tells him enough in her letters.”

We hear a couple of bumps from upstairs and our mother calling for Cora. She’s taken to staying in her rooms most of the day, and I don’t doubt there’s a shrine to Tanner in there somewhere. She stayed in there for almost a week when Tanner enlisted. She went through a whole carton of Chesterfields in three days and drank bourbon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was the good bourbon, too. It’s kept in wooden barrels down in the cellar, leftover from Prohibition and Grandpa DuBois used to haul it all over Baton Rouge. He had an affair with a prostitute and died in a speakeasy when my mother was seventeen.

Cora appears in the foyer, walking rapidly up the stairs, calling, “I’m coming, Miss Forrester!”

Cora has been with our family for years. I don’t remember anyone else except for her daughter Izzy helping out on occasion. My Uncle Alvin said her family used to be Forrester family slaves and that she works here out of loyalty. As if slavery was some beneficial tool started to ensure good black housekeepers in the future. He was also a gambler and borrowed so much money from my father, my father had to borrow money from my grandfather. And it all turned into a lawsuit, a Will dispute, and I’m fairly sure my uncle deserved it when one of his collectors shot him and tossed him in the Mississippi River.

Christ, I’ve got badness coming at me from both sides, and I wonder why I’d consider knocking Finny off a tree.

“I meant to ask you,” Althea says, finishing off a sentence. “What are all those pictures in your dorm?”

“What do you mean?”

“The plantations and stuff. That’s not from here. Those places are in Louisiana.”

I shift in my chair. “Momma’s from Louisiana.”

“I know, but those were just random houses. Not in the DuBois family at all.”

“How would you even know that?”

She looks up at me. “I know lots of things.” She smiles. “What did your friend have to say?” She nods at Finny’s still-unopened letter.

I wheel away from her. “Nothing really. Just wondering how I am.”

I feel her eyes on my back. “He’s awfully kind and thoughtful. What a wonderful friend to have.”

I keep rolling along, faster, until I’m across the hall.

When I’m alone in the parlor, I tear open Finny’s letter. My hands are shaking. I don’t know why. I guess I’m afraid he’ll say something in a letter he wouldn’t say in front of anyone else. Like about how he knows what I was doing. He somehow saw me before I fell and he knows. He’ll say I’m not his best friend, he hates me, and he’s going to tell everyone at school all about it.

But he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t say those things.

Would he?

His letter begins with a long apology, then morphs into an in-depth discussion about his feelings on the matter, and then he promises to help me in any way he can when we get back. He goes on about Boston, his own sister - Tabitha who’s eleven - and near the end he writes:

_I really hope you’re taking care of yourself. Things just won’t be the same if you don’t come back. I was worrying over that today. I suppose I’ll miss you. I’ve decided we won’t play a single game of blitzball until you’re well again. It will be in your honor, Gene. Please write me soon and tell me all about your days down South._

I put the letter on my lap and gaze out of the window.

What a sap he is. He “supposes” he’ll miss me.

I trace the letters with my finger, greatly relieved to find no accusations. He wrote on paper ripped from a composition book. The edges are jagged. My fingertips lightly follow the pattern. He scribbled out a couple of words near the end and I try to read them. I hold them up to the window, but I can’t tell what they say.

What a sap.

But I “suppose” I’d miss him, too.

* * *

There’s a roast for dinner.

Cora gets everything set out, settles us in, and my father says the blessing. I don’t usually sit on the end, but Althea parked me here. No crutches-practice today. I should probably start that tomorrow. I miss my room and Althea’s been going up and down the stairs to get me things. If she’s annoyed by it, she hasn’t said.

I’m on one end of the table, my father on the other, momma sitting across from Randy, and Althea is beside me. And, of course, one empty chair for Tanner. It doesn’t need to be there. My mother insisted. One empty chair at each meal to remind us of the great Tanner Blake Forrester who is making such sacrifices for his country. Funny thing is, he hasn’t eaten a single meal with the whole family since Christmas three years ago. And before that it was almost never. Our parents sent him to a prep school in Montgomery rather than send him over a thousand miles away to New England. They kept him close to show him off. He went to college at my grandfather’s alma mater, Tulane, and graduated magna cum laude. He was never here and when he was, he was always standing around with his hands in his pockets, tuning out of conversations, smiling politely, and looking at all of us as if we were the least interesting things in his life. We probably were, honestly.

Randy eats his green beans like they might crawl away from him. Althea says he picks at his breakfast, barely touches his lunch, but always shovels in his dinner. It might be a phase. I had a phase. We all did.

Althea slices her roast up neatly and takes a bite with the fork turned down. She learned it in finishing school. Her phase came when we were twelve, and she got all rowdy. She’d rip the lace off her dresses, jump in the mud by the front walkway, and roughhoused with Tanner when we played in the backyard. Momma dragged her off to finishing school two years later and now she crosses her ankles when she sits, turns her fork down, and she can even balance six books on her head while holding two full teacups walking up and down the stairs. She’s a one-girl circus act.

“I just know something’s happened,” my mother says ruefully. She rocks back and forth in her chair, sipping from her wine glass, and eating tiny bites. “Tanner’s upset with me. I should have written him back quicker, but there was the book sale.”

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” my father replies, stabbing his roast with a fork. “They just transferred him is all, and he’ll be sending along another letter when he settles.”

My mother’s rouge on her cheeks are like two lopsided ovals. “It’s got everything to do with me! I’m his mother!”

Randy’s almost done. He grabs a roll and takes a big bite.

“Hey,” I whisper to him. “Slow down a little, okay?”

He takes a gulp of his milk and says, “Okay,” with a mouth full of bread.

“Yes, fine,” our father speaks again. “Fine, then. It has everything to do with you. Maybe he’s got something stuck in his craw because his momma didn’t write him sooner. That _must_ be it. Couldn’t be anything else.”

My mother’s eyes flash with anger. “Maybe it’s the fact that his daddy can’t seem to get those filthy bushes off the front lawn where everybody can see.”

“And maybe it’s because his momma put the filthy bushes there to begin with.”

“Maybe his momma used to like the bushes, but they got too flashy for this house!”

Althea sets down her fork and crosses her arms.

“Maybe he thinks the bushes ain’t flashy at all and makes the house feel better!”

Randy keeps eating, slowing down like I told him.

I’m not sure what to do, so I put my fork down, too.

“Maybe he thinks it’s time to just dig up the filthy bushes and burn them!”

“And maybe he’d like to see you try! Good night!”

My father stands up abruptly, tossing his napkin on the table, and storms out the front door. My mother gets up in a huff and takes her glass of ambrosia wine upstairs.

Randy sits back in his chair and clutches his belly. “I’m so full.”

Althea takes his plate and takes her own. She gets up to go into the kitchen.

“Somehow I don’t think that was about bushes,” I say to her.

“You’ve been gone a long time, Gene,” she says. “A mighty long time.”

* * *

I get up from the cot and turn on a lamp.

I can get into the wheelchair from the cot just fine. I’ve had lots of practice. It’s getting from the wheelchair into the cot that’s tricky. It’s difficult to get leverage, and I favor my right side. I guess now I’ll have to bring my left side on board.

The clock in the library reads 12:06am. I wheel over to the writing desk and pull the chair away. I turn on the lamp and find Althea’s stationary. I take a pencil and I write: _Dear Finny, Thank you for your letter._

I stop right there and read it over.

That’s not enough.

I don’t know what else to write. I’m determined not to acknowledge his offer for help. What could he possibly do all the way from Boston? And besides, people only say that to make themselves feel better. They don’t really mean it. The offerer batting the ball back to the offeree, it’s self-serving. And he doesn’t really want to know all about my days down South. They’re dull. It strikes me right then that I’ve been rather reserved with him. I vaguely mentioned Tanner to him once, but not by name, and he didn’t know of Althea’s existence. Or Randy’s. I’ve sure as hell never told him a thing about my parents. He really doesn’t know anything about me. Especially what I was thinking on the tree that day…

He will never, ever know that.

I tap the pencil and chew my lip. I could tell him about Althea and Caroline writing letters to soldiers. That’s harmless. I could tell him about Randy scraping his knee on the driveway. That’s not too revealing. And why is that even a concern? I’ve shared a room with him, woken up and gone to sleep with him in the bed next to mine, and why shouldn’t I tell him about my twin sister and my little brother? Maybe I owe it to him. After all, he could be the one with the broken leg right now. He could be the one sitting up after midnight up in Boston with an itchy cast and cursing my name for all time.

I feel a chill.

That’s what almost happened.

I’ve got badness coming at me from both sides and maybe there’s no hope of ever fixing me.

I put pencil to paper and begin to write. I write Finny about my twin sister and my little brother. I fill up two whole pages and I pause at the end. I pause right before I write out that I “suppose” I would miss him, too.

* * *

“What’s he doing?” I ask Althea

She comes over to the window and looks outside. “Oh. He’s just having one of his fits.”

“His fits?”

Randy has been out under the crepe myrtles for most of the morning, laying on his stomach, pounding his fists into the ground and kicking. I’ve watched him flip over on his back and twitch like he’s having a seizure and pull up chunks of grass and throw them in the air. It’s the most alarming, yet fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.

“He does that sometimes,” Althea replies, laying out all her soldier-letters on the floor. “We just let him do it. He’ll tire himself out and be fit as a fiddle later.”

“So, he just goes out there and thrashes around? When did that start?”

“Mmmm, a few months ago, I believe.” She sorts through the letters and puts them into piles. “Momma told him he can’t do that in the house. He broke one of Grandma Forrester’s candy dishes. Momma nearly had a stroke.”

“Why’s he doing it at all?”

Althea raises one thin eyebrow. “After dinner the other night, you need to ask?”

After dinner the other night my mother put on her house robes and stood by the front window, cigarette in one hand, ambrosia wine in the other, and didn’t say one word to dad when he came home. Then Tanner finally sent a letter and she’s been upstairs crying over it for almost a whole day now. If I were Randy, I’d throw a fit, too.

I decide to omit that from my next letter to Finny. He doesn’t need to know about that.

Althea rises up from the floor as graceful as a swan and takes my crutches from their usual place by the bookshelf. “All right, dear brother. It’s time now.” She holds them out to me.

I scowl up at her. “Why do you get to pick when it’s time?”

“Because you’ve stalled long enough. Come on now. Up you go.”

I want to make a remark about how she’s not the boss of me, but as much as I hate it, she’s right. I’ve sat in this stupid chair too long. It would be nice to go outside without the wheels bumping on every rut and mound.

Just as I’ve risen up, putting all my weight on my left leg, Randy comes storming into the library. His eyes are wild, grass all over his face, and there’s a stream of snot coming out of one nostril.

“I’m ready for my lunch now,” he says.

“Fine.” Althea waves him into the kitchen. “Go let Cora know.”

Randy skips out of the room, and Althea helps me put the crutches under my arms. I whisper to her, “Momma and dad ought to get him some help. Like a shrink or something.”

“If Randy needs a shrink, then we all need a shrink. Now, go along slow. I’ll be right behind you.”

And Althea is right behind me. She hovers like a dutiful nurse as I hobble around the library. The exertion isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The crutches pinch my armpits and Althea tells me we can put in some padding for my comfort.

I don’t know if I deserve any comfort.

“Gee, those things are going to be murder on your posture,” she says. “You’ll be a hunchback.”

“I don’t care about my posture, and I’ll be standing straight for Uncle Sam soon enough.” I pause and catch my breath. The cast is heavy and the extra weight is hard to carry. I look over at her. “Are you really going to marry Richie Camden?”

A slight bitterness curls over her lips. “I suppose if he asks, I ought to say yes.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Well, I ought to.”

“That’s two different things.” I take a few tentative steps. “You should want to.”

“Easy for you to say. After you’ve finished at Devon, momma and daddy will be throwing Montgomery girls at you left and right. You’ll have the pick of the litter.”

I stop with an achingly slow realization sinking in. It’s always been somewhere in the back of my mind, the place where I keep the running narrative of my routines, studies, and should-dos and have-to-dos. But now it comes cartwheeling to the front like an acrobat: Devon will be over. I’ll have to be a soldier. And I’ll have to get married.

And I’ll never see Finny again.

We’ll have to go off on some military adventure either to Europe or the Pacific where either one of us could end up with a bullet in our chests. And if Tanner is killed - and by God, I hope he isn’t - the list of Montgomery debutantes that’ll be offered to me could circle Alabama twice. I’d always thought since Tanner was fulfilling the Forrester prophecy, I could get away with being a bachelor. The only girl I’ve ever kissed was Polly Pingwell and it wasn’t great and she’s an idiot. Her father owns Pingwell Fabrics and he bought a fine house in Macon County with Civil War bullet holes still in it. The thought of marriage with Polly Pingwell or any of the other girls in my sister’s social circle makes my blood curdle.

There’s truly something wrong with me.

“Maybe you should rest for a minute,” Althea says. “There’s sweat all over your face.”

I sit down on the settee momma brought with her from Louisiana almost twenty-six years ago. She said when Union soldiers came through Baton Rouge, our Great-Great Uncle Asher DuBois heroically tossed it on a horse and cart, with other family valuables, and rode off into the night while those Union savages burned DuBois Plantation to the ground. There’s a painting of his ugly mug in the parlor. He stares at me while I try to sleep, reminding me I wouldn’t have this oh-so-lovely place to sit with my busted up leg if it wasn’t for him.

And anyway, DuBois Plantation wasn’t burned down by Union soldiers. I found mention of it in an old book at the Devon library. Apparently, there was a society party and some liquored up slave master knocked over a lantern.

It’s always easier to lie than tell the whole truth.

Cora appears in the doorway, wiping her flour-stained fingers on a dish rag. “Mister Eugene. There’s a telephone call for you.”

I blink at her. “What? Me?”

“Yes sir, there is.”

I get up on the crutches. “I told you, you don’t have to call me that, Cora. Just Gene. Just call me Gene. No mister or anything.”

She purses her lips. “And upset your momma? She’d have my hide.”

I follow Cora into the kitchen. Dad really hates telephones, or any modern things in general, so he put it in the least visible part of the house. My mother shrieked at him for a whole month to put one upstairs for her. It worked.

Cora hands me the receiver and resumes her baking.

“Hello?” I say.

“Gene?”

A herd of butterflies unleash in my stomach, and I’m instantly flustered to all hell.

Finny.

“Are you there?” He asks.

I get my bearings. “Yes. Yeah. Hi. What are you - why -?”

“I got your letter today. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh.” I glance over at Cora. She glances over at me. She gives me a smirk and walks off to give me some privacy. “I’m okay. I’m doing okay. How are you?”

“It’s so boring here.” His voice sounds small and crowded. “It’s been raining for a week straight now. I’ve been getting a bit of cabin fever, you know?”

“Oh,” I say again.

“Yeah. I was happy to get your letter, and, I don’t know…thought I’d just call you up.” His voice gets husky at the end. I press my ear into the phone as if I can catch the sound like a ball in a net.

“Oh.” That seems to be all I can say now.

“So.” I hear a rustling sound, and I imagine him laying across a sofa, getting more comfortable, his legs stretched out, one arm behind his head. “How’s your leg? You don’t have to have any more surgeries do you?”

“No. I don’t think so. And it’s okay. I don’t like the cast. It itches a lot.”

“I can imagine.” I envision him shaking his head. “I still can’t believe it.” He pauses and I hear a breath or two. I picture him holding the receiver up to his mouth. Sweat prickles on my upper lip. “Actually, there’s…there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Shit. Here it is. My stomach drops to my feet. He’s going to say he saw me bend my knees. He saw me looking at him. He saw my face and he knew what I was going to do. The receiver gets slick in my hand.

“Listen, I…I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but…there’s a spot on that branch. I almost slipped there once myself. There’s a spot where the bark is rubbed off and - God, Gene, I don’t know why I didn’t just say something before. I really should have told you about it and maybe you wouldn’t have slipped off.” He pauses there and I’m holding my breath. “I’m so sorry. This really is all my fault.”

I let out a slow exhale of relief. But it’s only temporary. The absolute remorse in his voice is unbearable. He is, indeed, the most ridiculously perfect boy to ever walk the earth, but I can’t let him think this. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be right.

But it would ensure he never thinks beyond that. If he believes I slipped on some rubbed off bark, then I’m essentially in the clear. It would never cross his mind that I lost my footing because I was going to make him lose his.

“Well,” I say. “I mean, I guess you should have told me. But, really, Finny, it was an accident. Just a complete accident.”

“So, you forgive me, Gene?”

“Of course, but there’s nothing to forgive. Really. You’re right. The bark was rubbed off and that’s what did it, but there’s nothing you could have done.”

And that’s the truest thing I’ve ever said to him. There wasn’t anything he could have done. However it would have ended up - me on the ground or him on the ground - he was helpless and vulnerable in the whole mess of it. The thought of that sends my mind into a tailspin. How could I have even considered such an awful thing? I may have badness coming at me from both sides, but that doesn’t mean my fate is sealed. And, yes, he’s the very embodiment of every virtue ever, and, no, I’ll never be like him. But just having him in my life in this way is good. He writes me letters. He calls me up. He’s a wonderful friend to have, like Althea said.

“Okay,” says Finny. “I just don’t want you to be angry with me. I mean, God, I’d jump from the chapel roof if they took you out of our room and put me with someone like Brinker. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

I laugh softly and feel the butterflies come fluttering back. “I couldn’t stand him either. In little bits and pieces he’s okay. Just not all the time.”

“Exactly, exactly. Phew, I’m glad that’s out of the way. I was so afraid to tell you, but it’s like my mother says, honesty is the best policy.”

I swallow. “That’s very true.”

“Say, um…there’s a radio program coming on tonight. About 7:15. Bing Crosby. You want to, maybe, listen to it with me?”

There’s that tingle again. Only it’s all over me this time. “Sure. 7:15.”

“Good, good.” There’s a smile in his voice, and I can almost see it. The kind of smile that lights up his whole face and makes his emerald eyes twinkle. “I’ll write you tomorrow. Take care, Gene.”

“Thanks. You too, Finny.”

And we hang up.

* * *

Althea and Randy pull the radio from the hall cupboard where our dad stuck it before I left for Devon. He says we don’t need radios, newspapers are just fine, and if everyone starts listening to radios everyone will forget how to read, and blah, blah, blah, what a frightful mess this world will be.

Well, dad isn’t home and isn’t it about time this old house had some music in it? That’s what Althea says as we search for a place to plug it up. I hobble around the parlor while Randy dives under a table, right by ugly old Uncle Asher, and finds an electric socket. Once we get it plugged in, Althea turns through the stations until we hear President Roosevelt’s voice.

We sit by the radio - Randy on the floor and Althea and I on the sofa - and wait for Roosevelt to finish his talk. He sounds stern and presidential. Also boring. I’d listen to any of my teachers at Devon over him any day. Randy starts to fiddle with Grandma Forrester’s doilies when Bing Crosby finally comes on and croons into the room like smooth, rich velvet.

Randy turns up the volume and hops around. I sit back on the sofa, and forget. I forget about my itchy cast, tall trees and riverbeds, and all I think about is at that very moment, a thousand miles away, Finny is laying on the floor in his house, listening to this song, and I get all warm inside and everything glows and everything is beautiful, and it’s a good day. I say that to Althea when she asks, “What are you smiling about?”

I look out the window at the big, big sky and I say, “Today was a really good day."


	3. Chapter 3

After the first night I get to sleep in my own bedroom, Dr. Tellison makes a visit.

He listens to my heart. Pokes around on my legs, and all the while his thick, white beard twitches with every breath he takes. He’s more stern than Stanpole and a million years older too. I’d bet he remembers when the dinosaurs swam in the Gulf.

He puts away his stethoscope and stands over me with his hands on his hips. “You been using those crutches, Eugene?”

“Yes sir,” I reply. “Every day. I can get up and down the stairs with them.”

I say that like it’s easy and it’s not. First try, Althea stood behind me just in case. I doubt she would have caught me, but she was there anyway and it was _really_ hard and _really_ exhausting even before I was halfway up. So, she and Randy got me turned around and Randy stood behind me and Althea stood in front of me as I made my way down. The trick, and probably not a good trick, is putting weight on my broken leg. Just a little bit. The cast is thick enough and it’s just for a second. I think that’s why Dr. Tellison is looking at me like I stole his doctor bag and lied about it.

“These stairs?” He points into the foyer.

“Yes sir.”

“Hmmm.” He wanders out to the foyer and rubs his beard. “That’s an awful lot of stairs, Eugene.”

“Oh, now, he’s got help, doc,” my mother says from the sofa. She’s all dressed up, no house robes, and has her hair done up nice for once. “Althea and Randolph help him up and down in the mornings and the evenings.”

Tellison lights a cigarette and sits down in font of me. “You should probably keep to your bed for a few days. That leg can’t heal if you’re over exerting yourself.”

“But my leg feels fine.”

“I’m sure it does, but maybe no more stairs for a couple of weeks, hm?” He looks over at my mother. “When does he start back to school?”

My mother lights a cigarette and takes a long drag. “The third. Herman is going to drive him. I don’t know how I feel about him going back to that awful school. They don’t have any chaperons to watch the boys. They all jump off of trees like animals.”

I scowl at her. Althea pinches me, and I turn away.

“I see.” Tellison looks at me for a minute. “What would the administration do if you started back at a later time?”

“Like how late?” I ask.

“Maybe by October to be on the safe side.”

“So a month?”

He nods.

“I mean, I guess that would be all right. I just don’t want to get behind in my classes.”

“I can call up there and talk to them.” Tellison looks at my mother. “Tell your husband to take him up in October. His leg is healing up nicely, but he needs more time to rest.”

One the one hand, it’ll be nice to stay home a while longer. I wasn’t writing my family hardly at all before. I’d missed out on so much. On the other hand, it was liberating to get away from the arguments, my mother’s bourbon stupors, and all the sentimental pining for Tanner. And I won’t get to see Finny for longer than I’d planned. The thought of that makes me feel like how the sun must feel when it ends the day.

Tellison makes the arrangements with my mother and then he bids us a good evening. Althea wheels me over by the library windows and goes off to get ready for the Indian Summer Social at the high school. She’ll have to make do with one of her old dresses since there’s a shortage on fabrics. I heard Mr. Pingwell’s factory has been ordered by the government to stop making civilian clothes and start making uniforms and parachutes.

Randy goes outside and has a fit. I halfway watch him and halfway re-read the last letter Finny sent me.

I’ve been keeping it in my pocket for days now. No real reason. I just like reading it. Not even all of it. Just some parts. Like where he talks about the radio program and knowing I was listening to it, too. He said it made him feel like I was there with him. He said he’s going to rearrange our room before I get back - _it’s no trouble at all, Gene_ \- and put my bed closer to the door. He said he’s planning to speak to the head cook in the dining hall and arrange to bring me my meals in our room - _so you don’t have to walk around so much and your leg can heal better_ \- and he said he’s going to walk with me to all my classes so I’ll have someone to carry my books - _and I won’t mind at all, Gene, not at all._

I read it over and over again. That’s a lot of things he’s planning to do and should I let him? He’ll have his own classes, activities, and sports. He can’t spend all his time helping me out. I might not need it anyway. Tellison told me a while ago the cast could come off as early as December. I’m pretty good with the crutches. But Devon is bigger than my house and there’s more stairs. I don’t know how I’ll handle all that just yet.

I put Finny’s letter away. Part of me wishes he would call me again. Part of me wishes he would lift me up again. A tightness forms in my chest whenever I think about it. It’s automatic, involuntary. Damn his strong arms and helpfulness.

And damn him for making me think about him right now.

* * *

Randy and Althea start back to school.

Dad goes off to shake hands with politicians and smoke cigars. Momma stays in her rooms. Cora bakes in the kitchen. I’m virtually alone. I take books from the library shelves and read them. Even ones I’ve read before. I listen to the radio. I sort out Althea’s soldier-letters for her. I’m able to wheel myself down to the old Forrester Cemetery and look around. Cora teaches me how to roll out pie crust.

I think too much. I get bored. I take a lot of naps.

It doesn’t occur to me at first. It’s mid-afternoon and the house is quiet. Randy and Althea aren’t due home yet and I hate this part of the day. It’s stale. Too early and too late. As I watch a flock of blue jays perch in the crepe myrtles I realize this would be the day I’d travel back to Devon. Dad and I would be on the road right now.

I wonder if Finny’s gone back yet. I wrote him and told him I would be coming back later. I don’t know if he’ll get my letter before he leaves. That was really all I said. I didn’t have much else to say and now that everyone’s going on with their lives, I feel stuck and October is a long way off.

A really long way off.

I hope I don’t lose my mind like Great-Grandpa Forrester and make-believe I’m a lion.

Sometime after two, I hear the doorbell. Cora comes out of the kitchen and I hear her footsteps on the wood floors. They’re original wood floors - most of it - laid down by the first Forrester in Montgomery in 1781, Tobias Forrester, who came down from Philadelphia with hopes and dreams and no protection against yellow fever. He actually survived the illness, but a tribe of Chickasaw Indians shot an arrow through his left eye when he ran off with their horses and tobacco.

There’s really no hope for me at all.

“Mister Eugene,” Cora says.

I turn my head.

“You have a visitor.” She steps to the side and there behind her, holding a hat in his hands, walking into my library in my house with sparkling emerald eyes, is Finny.

* * *

I try not to look like a cripple in a wheelchair but that’s not possible.

Finny sits on the sofa in the parlor, right below ugly Uncle Asher, and stares at me. Cora brought us some Cokes and I haven’t touched mine. Every sound in this house seems louder than usual. I hear every creak, every bang of a wasp into the large windows, and every bump upstairs of my mother thrashing around. My awareness of it all is so enhanced I can hardly focus on the fact that Finny is here. In my house. Right now.

“You look better than I thought you would,” Finny grins.

“Thanks.” I try to smile back.

It’s strange after all the letters and the phone call to see him now. It’s like he’s different and he’s not really. Same Finny. Same one from the parking lot that watched us drive away. His hair looks a little shorter. That’s about it. But it’s different somehow. We listened to a radio show together when we weren’t together. And his letters have been so nice, always worried about me, not really concerned about himself. But in all those exchanges something happened. Is he really all that different or is it just me?

“So, this is Gene Forrester’s house,” he says, looking around. “Impressive.”

“It’s old,” I say, like that might change anything.

“And big.” He turns to look at the ugly portrait. “Wow. Paintings and everything. I had no idea.”

“What are you doing here?” It comes out wrong. I change my tone. “I mean, it’s way out of your way. Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“I got your letter, and I thought I’d come see you. You won’t be back until October and it just seemed like a long time. And I got kind of worried.” He reaches back to scratch his neck. “I thought maybe you took a turn for the worst and I should…come see you.” He shrugs like he had no choice in the matter.

“Thanks, but I’m okay. Just the doctor thought I should rest a while longer. That’s all.”

He nods.

“I mean it’s nice, it’s nice of you to come all this way…” I trail off, then I just lose the trail completely. I really never thought in a million years Finny would be sitting in the parlor of my house drinking Coca-Cola and staring at my broken leg. He really can’t stop looking at it.

“Are you in any pain?”

“I have to drink this syrup that helps. And it doesn’t really hurt anyway. It just itches. I’ve actually had the same itch on my knee for three days now, but I’ve learned to ignore it.”

“Same itch for three days?” He looks at me with great interest. “I don’t know if I could do that.”

“It’s not easy,” I admit.

He does another look-around and his eyes fall on my crutches. He sets down his Coke and picks them up. He puts them under his arms. “These seem all right. Nice and sturdy.”

The sight of him on crutches makes something inside me tip over and break. It would have been awful. Just the absolute worst if he’d fallen that day. I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. And he would’ve hated me. Oh, yes he would’ve. He would’ve looked at me like I was pure scum and never spoken to me again. The great loss that would have been makes my eyes sting. I had no right to think, even for a second, that there was anything but friendship between us. Even if he had surpassed me in our studies, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’m going to get stuck in a tank and wind up married to one of Althea’s idiot friends.

“Here.” He hands the crutches to me. “Let’s practice.”

“Practice what?”

“You’ll need somebody to help you get around and up the stairs won’t you?” He nods to the staircase. “Over here.” He goes over to it. “Come on over.”

I get up and hobble over to him. I don’t know if it’s because he’s watching me or the moment I just had, but I’m not very steady on them. I tip to my right side, the left crutch flailing upwards, and his arm shoots around my waist, curling around like a vine. A feeling, close to my heart, bursts forth. Like a spill. A warm, thick spill that flows into each finger, each toe, and shoots up to my brain where my thoughts go full tilt.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers.

And he does. He’s got me. He’s got me good. Damn that strong arm of his holding me up, pulling me to him. Damn those green eyes and warm, milky breath on my cheek. And when I turn my head, I see he’s close to me, he’s right up against me, and an absolutely insane thought enters my mind. Absolutely, completely insane.

I could kiss him.

We’re that close. His eyes briefly lock with mine and flick down to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and I could kiss him. I could kiss this impossibly perfectly imperfect bastard right now. My face burns like a torch.

“See?” He smiles. “Practice.”

“Practice,” I repeat.

His arm slides away and I want it back. He helps me up and down the stairs and each time he takes away his hand or his arm I want it back. And I know that when he leaves I will want him back.

* * *

Finny gets a small taste of Southern hospitality.

My mother invites him to stay for dinner and I’m somewhere between giddy and terrified. He traveled a long way so he should stay for dinner. He should. But all I can do is worry over how everyone will behave. Like will Randy have a fit? Will Althea tell him something embarrassing about me? Will my parents argue over filthy bushes in front of him? It’s like I want him to be there but I don’t want him to be there, and I sit at the dinner table, barely touching anything while a giant, tangled yarn-ball of giddiness, terror, irritation, and _should I pretend to fall over so he puts his arm back around me_ completely takes me over and I don’t even know which way is right or left or up or down.

My dad isn’t at dinner, so Finny takes his seat because Tanner’s empty chair just _has_ to be there, and at least Finny doesn’t ask anyone about it. My mother is the perfect Southern lady. Her rouge and lipstick are on straight and she drinks her ambrosia wine in tiny sips. She chats politely with Finny, gives him a history of our house, but leaves out the arrow-in-the-left eye parts, and Finny listens intently, asks questions, and is just amazed by everything. Althea asks him about Boston and school, polite finishing-school conversation, and Randy eats like a normal human being.

It’s fine.

It’s fine. Finny’s in my house eating dinner with my family and it’s fine.

Except for the part where I want to get him alone and “practice” using my crutches some more.

Jesus Lord. I’m insane. I’ve lost my mind. I really have. And he’s such a polite and grateful guest, I can’t stand it. And he’s so handsome and smiling, I might pull my hair out. And he laughs so merrily at something Althea says, I might just die. It was always hard not to look at him, always difficult not to listen to him, to follow him up trees and into rivers, and participate in his invented games. And now…oh, God, now…

I will die. I will drop dead right here.

“Phineas, dear,” my mother says after dinner and we’re all in the parlor. “I would be beside myself with worry if you took a train back tonight. Why don’t you stay the night here? We’ve got plenty of room.”

Yep. _Dead_.

Finny’s been yawning, his eyes getting sleepy, in the hour after dinner, and he should stay the night. He should. He’s come a long way, an absurdly long way, to see me. But I’m going to die.

“I can’t impose on you like that, Mrs. Forrester,” Finny says before another yawn. “The Raleigh’s have beds and breakfast in them. My dad and I took one all the way to Detroit a couple years ago. They’re sensational.”

“Oh, now, I won’t hear of it.” My mother gets up, staggering only slightly, and calls for Cora. “We’ll set you up in Eugene’s room. It’s so kind of you to come all this way to see my boy. It makes me feel so much better that he has a friend like you at Devon.”

Finny just beams and it’s like sunshine on a cloudy day and I’ve been turned completely inside out, upside down, shaken like a martini, and I don’t realize I’m grinning from ear-to-ear until Althea locks eyes with me and I try to pull myself together.

“I agree,” Althea speaks up. “Phineas, won’t you stay? We’re pleased to have you.”

“Thank you,” Finny says, ducking his head slightly. “I really appreciate your kindness.”

And then it’s all settled. Done deal.

He helps me up the stairs, walking up behind me, one hand on my back, and I feel that hand as if it’s a hot iron. Hot, electric, and pulsing through me. Cora puts the cot in my room with fresh blankets and a pillow. I feel embarrassed at the state of my bedroom, the piles of books, my unmade bed, and the pastoral paintings of old Montgomery that my mother won’t let me take down for my own wall-hangings. Finny doesn’t seem to mind or take much notice.

Althea helps me into bed, a look crossing her features, the slightest of smiles on her face, and I don’t know whether our twin ESP has alerted her to my crazed state or she’s just being a good sister. Finny lays on the cot, too tired for much of a monologue, and mumbles his thanks to me and my family, bids me a goodnight, and he’s dozing ten seconds after his head touches the pillow.

I’m wide awake.

It should be like it was at Devon. Finny sleeping just a few feet away while I ruminate over the day. While I think too much about everything, ride waves of envy, and fret over an impending exam. But tonight, I look over at him sleeping soundly in my bedroom, soft light on his face, his maddeningly perfect face, and I think about his arm around me. I think about his soft whisper in my ear.

_I’ve got you._

And he does.

He’s got me.

And I want so much to hear him say that I’ve got him, too.

* * *

Late summer crickets chirp outside the window.

I tried to count them - _one-mississippi-two-mississippi-three-mississippi_ \- but that didn’t work. I read through the absolute most uninteresting periodical in the library - _Mating Rituals of the Great Horned Toad in the Lower Wetlands of Big Cypress._ Why we even have that, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, and that also didn’t work. I found an old algebra book and did some figures and that didn’t work.

I can’t get him out of my mind.

Finny left with little ceremony this morning after a nice breakfast. My mother came down from her rooms, fully dressed, clear-eyed, and did her Southern lady duty. Althea chattered about her soldier-letters, which Finny found most impressive, and Randy spilled his milk all over himself.

It was fine. I didn’t die.

Not yet.

I didn’t notice until Finny was ready to walk out the door that my dad didn’t come home last night. He could’ve drove Finny to the train station, and my mother - who doesn’t drive at all - said my dad would be home by lunchtime if Finny wanted to wait. But Finny said we’ve been too kind already and he had money for a taxi cab. I hobbled to the end of the driveway, almost all the way out in the street, and watched that taxi cab take him away from me. I stood there like he did in the parking lot at Devon. I couldn’t tell if he was watching me as he drove away, but I lifted one hand in a wave and breathed into the morning Montgomery air, “I’ve got you,” until the car was out of sight and the street was empty and silent.

And then the rest of the day was dull and stupid and Althea wrote letters while Randy had a fit and momma put on her house robes and went upstairs to drink. The brief magic he brought dissolved and everything and everyone became ordinary again.

So. Now I’m laying here, listening to the crickets, and thinking about what if he didn’t take his arm away? What if I did kiss him? Would he kiss me back? Why would I even want to do that because he’s annoying sometimes and he’s perfect and he never gets in trouble or does anything wrong and it annoys me and my hands clench the covers because I do want to kiss him and I imagine me doing it down by the stairs, putting my lips on his lips and feeling how soft they are and how warm his breath would be and I think about it, and I think about it, and I think about it, until there’s a surge of blood down to my crotch and I sit up in a flash.

There’s something wrong with me.

All that badness coming at me from both sides. It’s got me now. Dear Lord Sweet Baby Jesus, it’s got me now. _He’s_ got me now.

I want to smack him. Then kiss him. Then smack him. Then just kiss him. But really just kiss him. I wouldn’t smack him. Why would I want to smack him? Why would I want to kiss him?! _What is wrong with me???_

I get up out of my bed and grab my crutches, no longer interested in sleeping. It’s useless. Pointless. I make my way down the hall and look down the looming staircase to the bottom.

“Just go one at a time,” I whisper to myself.

I chant it to myself as I take the first step, my crutches going _click, click_ and my foot going _thunk_. One at a time, one at a time, I go _click, click, thunk_ down the steps and it takes me forever. I’m sweating something awful by the time I reach the bottom. I take a few breaths, then hobble into the library.

There aren’t that many books. Just two bookcases, one of them floor to ceiling, on the left and right. Great-Grandpa Forrester’s first Mississippi bride had the first set built. His second Mississippi bride had the second set built, and she made sure it was taller and bigger than the other. Missouri Minerva Forrester - nee’ DeLisle - is eternally preserved in sepia tones over the fireplace. She met my Great-Grandpa two months after his first wife died of typhoid fever. Missouri Minerva had no fingers on her left hand. She lost them all to frostbite when she was six. She was notorious for beating her black ladies’ maids to within an inch of their lives and the story goes she choked on a biscuit and died at the breakfast table at the ripe old age of thirty-three.

Seriously. No hope for me at all.

I cut on the lamp and search through the titles. There’s the DuBois family history books going all the way back to France. The Forrester family history books going all the way back to Scotland. There used to be a collection of journals Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Forrester kept during the Civil War. But dad had to sell them to some historical institution in Atlanta to pay off Uncle Alvin’s gambling debts. There’s a collection of Scottish fairy tales and genealogical studies of the great families of Montgomery.

I curse under my breath as I search and hope what I’m looking for isn’t on the top shelf. I nearly yelp with joy when I see it - the line of encyclopedias within my reach. I pull H off the shelf and set it on the writing desk. I go fetch the dictionary and lay it there. I pull a concise study of psychology for good measure and settle down in the chair.

I open the dictionary first and search for _homosexual_.

It’s not like I don’t know. I do know. It’s something I’ve always been vaguely aware of and never gave much thought to other than that it exists. But now I’m very much aware and when I find the definition it’s disarmingly simple:

_Homosexual - ho·mo·sex·u·al: sexual interest in and attraction to members of one’s own sex._

I stare at it and keep having the urge to look away. Like I really shouldn’t be looking at this or reading this. I look over my shoulder. The ghosts of my ancestors would not approve. I look it up in the encyclopedia. I read through the dictionary again and scan the psychology book. All in all, it doesn’t sound right but it does.

I don’t want to kiss Brinker. Or Leper. Or any other boy at school. It’s just Finny. Just him. All day him. All night him. And if it’s just him, then am I really like this? Does it count?

I think about kissing Polly Pingwell again. She slipped me the tongue, and all I remember thinking is that I never wanted her to do it again. But if Finny did that - oh GOD if Finny did that - I’d never want him to stop. I don’t feel right. I feel feverish without the fever. Dizzy without the spinning. Struck dumb without being struck. I’ve never felt this way about a girl. Not ever. Not once. I figured my plans to be a lifelong bachelor would be easy to accomplish. But if it wasn’t Finny, would it be some other guy? Right now it’s him, but what about later? In the army? In college? And who am I kidding - I’ve looked at Brinker’s rear end more than anyone at school ever has, guaranteed!

I feel like I’m standing on a volcano. It’s too big for me right now. Too much to take in and there’s a rumbling under my feet and an ache deep inside me. I like him. I really, really like him and I think I always have and I think I didn’t want to believe it or accept it. But it’s true. It’s really, really true. And does he like me, too? I mean, he came all this way to see me. He wrote me, he called me, and even before that - what was it he said? Everyone’s looking at me because of my movie star tan?

A grin spreads out on my face. Butterflies flutter and my heart pitter-patters. He likes me. It really seems like he likes me. Then I frown. He’s that way with everybody, though. And I remember how he was looking at Althea and the butterflies fly away. No. I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I close the encyclopedia. I look around the library as if the specter of Tobias Forrester will see me reading about homosexuals on his original wood floors and strike me dead. I pull the psychology book towards me and begin to read in earnest.

Okay. It’s okay. I have to know. I have to know everything so I can figure this out. If there’s some kind of cure, some psychological root cause, then I have to know. October is a long way off, but it’ll be here, and I’ll be back at Devon with Finny in my room, just a few feet away on his bed, and I’ll be yearning and wanting and needing and that perfectly imperfect bastard has no idea.

He’s got no clue how much he has of me already.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey. Gene.”

There’s a shaking and tapping on my shoulder. My head shoots up, and I squint at the window. I look up to see Althea standing over me, holding a cup of coffee. At first, I don’t know where I am, then I remember coming down into the library. To read. To read about…

Shit!

I look down at the psychology book underneath me, Althea’s trying to get a peek, and I close it with a loud slam.

I lean my elbow on the book like it’s no big deal. “Since when did you start drinking coffee?” I say to her, my voice scratchy.

“Since when did you start sleeping in the library?” She retorts. “How did you get down here anyway? You should have woken me up.”

“I couldn’t sleep and the stairs weren’t that bad.”

Her coffee smells good. She sits across from me, still in her nightgown and robe. I realize it’s Sunday morning, just two days since Finny was here. God…Finny. Anything and everything about him crowds into my mind suddenly. I feel my face redden.

Althea gives me a strange smile. “What were you reading that you didn’t want me to see?”

I roll my eyes and pretend to yawn and not care. “Nothing. Just some stuff. Boring stuff to help me sleep.”

“Is that so?” She raises a brow and blows on her cup.

“Yes. Nosy.”

Her fingernails tap on the cup thoughtfully and she gives me such a grin, I don’t know what to make of it. “Well, we made you some breakfast. Want me to bring it in?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

She gets up and leaves, and I look around the desk to make sure there’s no more evidence of my late-night curiosities. I stack all three books together and return them to the shelves. Althea comes back with Cora and a tray of bacon, eggs, and orange juice. I ask Cora for some coffee, too, and she brings me a steaming cup while Althea goes on and on about Reverend Barrett’s revival later today and how she really can’t go and doesn’t want to go because the whole thing is simply barbaric and she can’t stand all the hallelujahs and amens and plus she has to stay here to take care of me and she’s lucky she can use me as an excuse.

I nod like I’m listening. And I am to some degree. I can’t fully be here right now. My mind is on the books and my mind is on Finny. This is a problem. In one way good and in one way bad. He’s back at Devon by now and is he really going to do all that stuff for me? I still can’t believe he was here. Parts of my body light up under my skin at the memory of where his arm was. His hand.

Dear God. I can’t be thinking this while Althea talks about Reverend Barrett. He lives just six miles from our house. His father was a reverend. His grandfather was a reverend. His great-grandfather married my Great Aunt Sylvia to my Great Uncle Peltus. Sylvia Garnet Forrester married into the Bowling family on a bright spring day in May. Peltus Bowling bought his new bride two white horses named Daisy and Iris. Sylvia didn’t like Daisy and Iris so she ordered one of her slaves to shoot them. In a moment of pity for the poor horses, the slave - I think his name was Thaddeus - took Daisy and Iris two farms over and handed them off to the Farrington family slaves. When Sylvia saw her two white wedding day horses pulling Callie Farrington’s buggy, she had Thaddeus shackled and beaten. Sylvia ended up having an affair with Peltus’ brother, Joseph, got dysentery, and died a pretty slow and painful death.

I’m doomed.

“I was just thinking about your friend, Phineas,” Althea says, breaking into my thoughts.

I drop my fork on the plate with a clatter. I pick it back up.

“I was telling Cora what a kind-hearted person he is. So helpful when we picked you up and coming all this way to see you.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “I don’t believe Caroline or Mabel would do that for me.”

I pick up my coffee, and I hope she doesn’t see my hands shaking.

“I’m so glad you’ve found such a loyal friend, Gene.” She takes a sip, and her eyes find mine, twinkling with a knowledge. “A nice, thoughtful, caring, handsome…”

I’m taking a sip of coffee as she says this, and I spit it back out into the cup. Partially from the taste and partially from her words. “What? What are you - ?” I cough a little on the bit that went down the wrong pipe.

“I saw, Gene,” she says softly. “I saw what you were reading last night.”

I make a move to get up and get my crutches.

She reaches out and grabs my arm. “It’s okay, Gene. Sit down. It’s okay.”

I reluctantly sit back down. I can feel all the blood draining from my limbs. I can hear it rushing through my ears. I should have been more careful. I knock myself over and over for being so careless.

“And it’s lucky I came in here before momma or Randy did,” she whispers.

“I was just reading.”

“That was some very specific reading.” She finishes her coffee and looks out at the crepe myrtles. “You know, I always sort of wondered. There was that short-lived thing with Polly. You never paid any attention at all to Caroline, and she had the biggest crush on you. And then Mabel practically threw herself at you at my cotillion, and you didn’t even notice.”

“Mabel?” I frown, going through all the girls in my head. “Which one’s Mabel?”

“See?” She smiles. “I knew it. I’ll always know because I’m your twin sister, and we spent the first nine months of our lives all crammed up together.” She taps her temple. “It’s like ESP.”

“It’s not ESP. It’s nothing.” I frown deeper.

“I know you like him. It was easy to see. You were making big moon eyes at him the whole time he was here. I can’t blame you, though. He’s very handsome. Those green eyes and broad shoulders -”

“Hush,” I growl at her. “Hush your mouth!”

She giggles and leans towards me. “Oh, come on now. We all get a bit curious once in a while.” Something faraway flickers over her eyes for a second, and she turns to the windows again. “It’s only natural.”

“Well…,” I sit back in the chair. “The books say it isn’t.”

“And all those books were written by a bunch of old men who don’t know anything about our generation. We’re living through a war right now and things will change. You’ll see. Momma and daddy won’t be able to push me into Richie Camden’s arms after it’s over. No sir. Everything will change.”

My fingers find the corner of a piece of paper and begin fiddling with it. “It’s just that…I don’t know. For sure. You know? And he’s been my friend for so long and we’ve shared a room…and I just don’t know. I don’t know why I feel this way.”

“He’s an easy person to like. That’s why. And he clearly cares for you very much. I don’t know anyone who would take a train all the way from Boston to Montgomery just to see a friend.”

The corners of my lips twitch. “Really?”

“Well, he might have just been worried about your leg and all. But that’s still a long way. I mean, think about it - who would you do that for? Would you do that for him?”

I think about it for a second. “Yeah. I would.”

A grin spreads across her lips.

I feel my face flush. “Don’t look at me like that.”

She laughs again, and I can’t help but smile. I feel oddly relieved, and pleasantly surprised by her understanding. But the smile soon leaves my face. “What if it’s not just curiosity, though? What if it’s more than that? I mean, I am curious. But just about him. And I think I’ve always liked him this way. It was just hard to understand or admit to before. And now…now it’s like this rush of just…stuff. All this stuff coming out of nowhere, but it had to come from something.”

She sighs, her expression turning serious. “If it isn’t just a curiosity, then you’d better make sure - double, triple, quadruple sure - he’s worth it. There’ll be a whole world of trouble coming for you and him if it’s more than that. And not just from momma and daddy.”

I slump down. “I don’t know what to do.”

“For right now just wait. You’ve got lots of time before you have to go back. Time to think, and when you see him again, maybe you won’t feel this way anymore. I mean, we’re teenagers, Gene. As fickle as they come.”

I smirk at her. “Since when did you get to be so wise?”

She leans back and smiles. “Since my dear twin brother got himself a crush.”

* * *

I arrive back at Devon on a Saturday.

Dad drove, Althea rode in the passenger seat, and Randy hopped in the back with me at the last minute. My mother gave me a good long lecture with lots of finger-shaking, one side-hug, and told me Tanner would have never done such a thing and I should be more like him and maybe next time I’ll think twice before I behave like some field hand loitering around the delta.

It’s her favorite saying. And I suppose I won’t be behaving like field hand. I won’t be able to do much. Althea and Randy have to help me out when we stop in Virginia, and then once more in a tiny Amish town in Pennsylvania. And fall is in full bloom the further north we go and the air cools down and we get closer and closer and I wonder if I’ll still feel the way I did.

I wonder if it was really just some fluke. Two wires in my brain crossed, jostled by my fall, and in a month have reset themselves. A moment of insanity. Aren’t we all allowed a little bit of insanity every once in a while? But as Dad, Althea, and Randy carry in my things - and about fifteen Devon boys’ necks do a synchronized swivel towards Althea - we arrive in my room and I see Finny standing there, his smile expectant, his eyes shining, my mouth goes dry, my heart goes double-time, and I know then it was not a fluke.

He’s still got me. The handsome bastard has still got me.

Finny helps get my luggage in, introduces himself to my dad, and says hello again to Althea and Randy. The whole time I’ve got one foot in mortified and the other foot in jubilation. There’s polite talk all around me, Randy getting antsy, and part of me wants my family to leave and the other part wants them to stay. There’ll be no one to cling to in these new waters I’m navigating. It’s frightening, it’s exciting, it’s everything. I’m either going to be lucky and happy or the unofficial Forrester curse is going to strangle all the sense out of me.

Althea makes me promise to write her more, which I do. I owe her a lot, and she doesn’t give anything away. No looks or verbal insinuations. Before she leaves, she gives me a nearly imperceptible wink and a hug. Dad gives me hard pat on the back, Randy salutes like a solider, and then they’re leaving. And then they’re gone. And then it’s just me and Finny.

Just me and him.

Oh, God.

“So,” Finny says. “Do you like it?” He gestures to our room and I see he’s arranged it. He’s put my bed right by the door as promised, but he’s taken the extra step of putting the desk in an easily accessible place for me, too. He’s moved his own bed to the furthest wall away from mine, and I feel a bit of disappointment.

“I can fix it up anyway you want, Gene,” he says, noticing my frown. “I just thought this would be easy for you.”

“No, I like it. I like it,” I say quickly. “Thank you for doing all this.” And then he smiles and my tongue goes slack in my mouth.

“Are you hungry? I can get you something from the dining hall.”

“No. I’m okay. We had lunch on the way.”

“God, I’m so glad you’re back.” He sits on his bed. “It just wasn’t the same without you here.”

I take hold of that and let it wind around my already fast-beating heart. “It’s good to see you.” I flush right after I say it. Was that too much? Did I say it weird?

“Sure, sure. Now listen. There’s a lot you’ve missed, so I’ll need to catch you up.” He sits beside me on my bed and I try to calm myself. “You won’t believe what happened when we got back. So, you know how Brinker is always going on about wanting to enlist already?”

He continues with his stories, punctuated by his own thoughts on each matter, and I’m not even listening. I have no idea what Brinker did or said. I have no idea what Mr. Ludsbury said to Leper after class. No clue about Chet getting sick with something or other. I don’t know, I don’t care, and I just want to sit here, close like this to him, and watch him talk. And he can talk. He could talk his way out of a POW camp. He could talk his way out of a bank robbery. And right now he’s talking his way deeper and deeper into my psyche and into my feelings and if he doesn’t shut up soon, I might start vomiting up hearts.

Damn him. Damn his eyes, his lips, that gentle slope of his neck. I don’t even notice my itchy cast or nodding dumbly to his words. All of my senses pick up on all of him with laser focus. Has he always smelled like fresh-cut grass? Has he always had that little dimple in his left cheek? Has his voice always sounded this rich and smooth?

He stands abruptly. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’ll be right back.”

About a minute later, he comes in the door with Leper and Brinker. I’m instantly irritated, but we all make our greetings, and they ask about me, how I’m feeling, and apparently Finny promised to come get them when I returned. Brinker asks after Althea, and he gets that dopey look again. I swear to God, if he were my brother-in-law I’d have to punch his face in every day of his life. I think I’d take Richie Camden over him. They stay for a while, and I slowly begin to withdraw from the conversation.

I’ll get more time with just Finny soon enough. If he does what he says, I’ll be seeing him all day long. It excites me, worries me, but it calms me. I don’t know what’s going to happen and, in a way, that’s the most calming thought of all.

* * *

We get into a routine.

Finny helps me get ready in the mornings, as much as he can, since there’s some things he can’t help me with. He can’t help me take a shower. I wouldn’t stop him, but if I let my thoughts flow down that rabbit hole I’d have to excuse myself very quickly. And taking a shower is a whole ordeal anyway. I can’t get the cast wet, so I’m sort of half-in and half-out.

But Finny gets my books, walks me down the stairs, and over to my first class. He waits for me after and walks with me everywhere I go, blabbing the whole time about this and that and I want to shut him up. I want to shut him up with my mouth. It drives me crazy. I look for little things, little hints, to see if maybe, possibly, there’s a rare chance he feels this way about me. But the more I’m around him - and it’s practically sunrise to sunset - the more I see he’s talkative and helpful with everyone. It’s just how he is. I used to hate it. Now, I feel the old envy bubbling up when he’s chatting away with someone else or opening a door for someone else. This is a different kind of envy, mixed in with just a dash of hopelessness.

He’s got me, but I don’t have him. What’s a fella to do?

One rare warm afternoon, I’m out by the track watching Finny attempt to beat another school record. As he runs around the track, his shirt sticking to the sweat on his back, I get jealous. Then I get sad. Then I get jealous again. Then I get sad again when I realize he wouldn’t be able to do this if he’d fell. It was right that it was me. This is my atonement. Forresters never get away with badness, so why should I?

Then I get a vivid image of my lips kissing up his spine all the way up to the back of his neck and until he’s panting and I have to stop.

Stop it.

Just stop.

Then another image enters my mind, a memory breaking off from somewhere like a measure of music. Sitting here in the stands reminds me of when Althea and I were little, about six or seven, and we all went to Tanner’s track meet. It was a big deal. My mother wore her big, floppy hat and dad wore a pocket square. And Tanner could run. Probably as fast as or faster than Finny. He won medals and trophies for it. Althea and I were so excited we left our seats with our parents and went down to the fence. We stuck our fingers through the links and watched Tanner blow by, leaping over hurdles, and he was ahead. Then this other runner starts to catch up to him, a blond guy, legs like pistons. As they go around the curve, I see Tanner move to the edge of his lane and his hip moves and his foot comes up to the other guy’s foot and the blond guy falls. He tumbles to the track, rolls over twice, and clutches his wrist. I don’t even see Tanner cross the finish line, winning first place. I just look at the blond guy, holding his arm in agony as a nurse bumbles over to him.

The memory, the epiphany, the vivid detail of that day almost knocks the wind out of me.

“Gene!” Finny pants, hands on his knees. “How - how long?”

I look at my watch. “You beat it. By a minute.”

He holds up his arms in victory, and I’m breathing just as fast as him.

Tanner knocked that kid down. On purpose. It wasn’t any different than me standing on that branch, getting ready to jounce Finny off. He hurt that guy, and he did nothing. He got a medal, he held his arms in the air just like Finny is right now, and I knew and I saw, but I said nothing.

“Hey,” Finny jogs over to me. There’s sweat all over him. He’s glistening. I get pulled right out of my reverie and right into his emerald gaze. “Can you -” he pants. “Can you make sure -”

“I won’t tell anybody,” I promise him. “Like before.”

“Thanks,” he smiles. “God, Gene, I owe you a million.”

If that’s true, then I owe him a billion.

On our way back to our dorm, it feels as real as the late afternoon sun: the meanness, the cruelty I felt that day by the river is in my blood. I couldn’t help it. But now that I know, I can help it. I don’t have to fall prey to it. I don’t have to be like Tanner, no matter what my mother says. Finny walks alongside me, slow to keep pace with me, and talks about more records he wants to break and how he wants me to be there. It’ll all be just between us.

“I feel like you have all these secrets of mine,” he says now. “But I don’t have any of yours.” He turns so he’s walking backwards in front of me, genuine curiosity on his face. Then his voice dips down one octave, hushed and soft. “Will you tell me one?”

Oh, God. What a thing to be asked right now. I go through a merry-go-round of stuff I could say, and absolutely will _not_ say, but there’s only one I feel I can share in this moment.

I take a deep breath. I look down at his feet. “My mother.” I swallow a lump. “She drinks. Like a lot. Like a whole lot.”

Finny’s feet stop.

“I know she doesn’t look the type. She’s still real pretty and tries to keep herself up nice, but…” I keep staring at his shoes, at the grass stains and scuff marks. “It started after Randy was born. I remember Althea and I came home one day, and she was laying on the floor. We didn’t know what was wrong. We thought she was sick. I mean, she was laying in vomit and Randy was screaming and crying. Althea ran all the way to the doctor’s house and it was so far he had to drive them back. We we really scared, never seen a drunk person before, and it just got worse. She shuts herself in her rooms all day. She gets mad. She fights with my dad. She fights with everybody. She doesn’t know when to stop or she doesn’t want to. She fell down the stairs once. She left a candle burning in her room all night. I’m afraid she’s going to drink herself to death, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Finny’s feet don’t move.

I stand there, heaving, trying to ignore the sting in my eyes. I’ve never said it before. Not to anyone. Not even Althea. Now that it’s out there, in the air, aimed at Finny’s shoes, I feel almost naked and cold.

I chance a look up at his face. His eyes are wide and blurry, his mouth open a little. I look back down.

“Oh my God. Gene…” His voice sounds small. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I - I’m so sorry.”

A tear escapes my eye, and I quickly brush it away. “Yeah. Well.”

He comes beside me, puts an arm around my shoulders. “I’m glad you told me. I mean it. And I’ll never tell another soul.”

He doesn’t move. I don’t move. We’re as still as statues for a minute. I begin to hobble forward and he walks along. He keeps his arm around me, the weight of it comforting, the feel of it opens up a door inside me. I feel it deeper than before, this sharing of secrets, this warm afternoon, I give him a part of me. A part of me I’ve locked up tight and thrown away the key.

He doesn’t take his arm away all the way back to our dorm. And when the door is shut, when it’s just me and him, when I’m just standing there with a busted up leg in front of his perfect form, he wraps his arms around me and lets me cry into his shoulder until I’m all cried out.

* * *

Dr. Stanpole sends for me after lunch one day.

He listens to my heart, asks if I need anymore of the syrup, and makes sure the crutches are holding up.

He examines the skin above my cast and puts his hand to his chin. “It’s looking really good. Better than I thought.” He sits down at his desk and writes. “I’m going to call up the hospital. We’ll make an appointment to get you an X-Ray. That cast might be coming off sooner than we thought.”

“Really?” The thought of this itchy thing being taken off is elating. Oddly enough, I’ve grown so used to it, I hardly notice it anymore.

“Mm-hm.” He keeps writing. “You’re healing up fast. Real fast. You must have some sort of fairy god mother looking out for you.”

In a way I do. Finny’s been so helpful that I’ve been able to rest while he does everything. Sometimes he does things without me even asking. He makes my bed and turns it down for me. Gets my clothes out for the next day. And anytime he and the other guys are playing a game or hanging out, he makes sure it’ll be easy for me to be there. If not, he stays in our room with me.

He’s been different since I told him about my mother. He doesn’t talk as much. He just looks at me. I’ll catch his eyes from across the library or in our room. It makes my heart jump and it makes me wonder if that was too much. I’ve never cried like that in front of anyone. Not my parents, not Althea, not Randy, and definitely not Tanner. He looks at me with a wistfulness that I don’t know what to do with. It probably doesn’t mean anything. He probably just feels sorry for me. Poor Gene and his broken leg and drunk mother.

“How about we go in tomorrow?” Stanpole says. “In the morning? I can have you back before your second class.”

“That’s fine.”

“And if the surgeon agrees with me, we can start on some physical therapy. Help you get some strength back in that leg. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I leave Stanpole’s office thrilled I can finally get this thing off me. Finny’s waiting for me out in the hall.

“He said they might take it off,” I tell him, nodding to my cast. “We’re going to get an X-Ray tomorrow.”

“That’s sensational,” he smiles. “But you should keep it. As a memento.”

I laugh. “Why would I want to do that?”

“In memory of your great sacrifice to uphold the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session,” he says grandly. “You were the bravest of them all.”

“I don’t think slipping and falling is very brave.”

“Sure it is. You went bravely to where no Devon boy has ever gone before.”

The way he says it makes me laugh again.

We go back to our room and chat about how “sensational” - as he puts it - it’s going to be to not have this heavy thing weighing me down. I tell him about the therapy and he offers to help, of course. Then we both turn to our books, Finny opening one upon his lap on his bed, letting me have the desk.

I watch him read through a book of Latin poetry, his eyes beginning to glaze, when he looks up at me and catches my eye.

“Hey,” I say. “You remember that day at the beach?”

He closes his book and looks at me with solemn respect. “I do.”

“You said something to me,” I shift in the chair, trying to get my bearings. “And I didn’t say it back.”

He waits.

“And I should have. Because it’s true. You’re my best friend, too.”

A smile spreads over his face, slow and sweet, and I think my insides will just melt into a puddle. He hops off his bed, comes over to the desk, and picks up a pen. He kneels down beside me.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I never got to sign it. And if it’s going to be gone soon, I should commemorate this occasion somehow.”

He scribbles something on the front of my calf. I look down at it when he’s done.

_Gene + Phineas 2gether 4ever thru thick & thin._


	5. Chapter 5

Grandma DuBois used to tell Althea and I a story to shut us up and get us to sleep.

Apparently, there’s a legend in Baton Rouge about a boy named William and a girl named Ida May. Grandma DuBois says William was a Farrington and Ida May was an Upton - two families who eventually set up roots in Montgomery and invited each other to their parties, but also shot each other when there was too much liquor. It’s really not relevant. Anyway, Ida May lived on one side of the Mississippi River and William lived on the other. They were very much in love and would send letters to each other in bottles across the river every evening. One day, William just couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to see Ida May. So he got into the river and waded across to get to her. He was almost in reach of Ida May’s hand when he got stuck in some mud and was swept under the current. Poor Ida May watched her love get dragged down the river from her forever and Grandma DuBois says she never married, died a lonely old maid on the Upton estates, and she haunts it to this day.

Why Grandma DuBois thought that story would help Althea and I sleep, I don’t know. And there’s so many plot holes in it. Like, why didn’t William just use a boat? You can’t just wade across the Mississippi. Not unless you’re an idiot. And letters in bottles? Really? They’d get swept up in the current downstream and spit out into the Gulf. Not to mention, if William really wanted to see her that bad there were bridges. Like a lot of bridges, even back then. I grew up thinking William was a dumbass and Ida May was better off.

But on a cool misty morning, as Stanpole drives me to the hospital, I wonder if I’ve just been wading across a river and I’m going to get swept under. Or maybe I’ve been swept under already. Every minute I spend with Finny gets me more and more hungry for something else. I don’t know what he would do if I told him how I felt. I really don’t. Some days, I think he’d say it back. Some days, I think he wouldn’t. Althea told me in her last letter - in carefully camouflaged writing - that I should let things just be. _You can’t hurry these things, Gene. Especially not in your peculiar circumstances._

So, I’m peculiar now. I don’t know. If I could just take a boat like William should have, I’d be on the other side, safe and sound.

At the hospital, the X-Ray shows that Stanpole was right. The bones are healed. Just a tiny fracture that’s barely visible. When they remove the cast, my leg looks pale and sickly. There’s a faint purple spot just below my knee. Both doctors emphasize I shouldn’t put much weight on it just yet. I should go about it slowly, gradually.

They wrap it up in a bandage, help me off the table, and as soon as I try to balance my weight, I nearly fall over. And I wish with all my might the arms holding me up were Finny’s. They give me a cane, and ugly old-man-looking cane, and Stanpole carries it out while I leave on the crutches.

At least the cast is gone. I asked them to save the part Finny wrote on, and I take that back with me. It’s his little “4ever” part that gets me. I don’t know how he feels, but I do hope he’s in my life forever. In any way he wants to be. He’s got me, and even though I probably don’t have him, I’d be just like William, forget about boats and bridges, and wade across a river to get to him.

* * *

Althea sends a telegram about Thanksgiving.

She wants to know if dad should come and get me. I send her one back about the cast being gone, and I can take the train. Thanksgiving came up fast. It feels like I just got back and now I have to leave again. I have to leave Finny. And he has to leave me.

“What day are you going back?” He asks me, as I go through my clothes, deciding on which ones to take and which ones to leave. It’ll be warm in Montgomery. Warmer than up here.

“Wednesday, I think. I don’t want to stay too long. We’ll have a lot of exams when we get back. How about you?”

“I’ll be staying here,” he answers with a sigh.

I turn to him.

“It’s cheaper if my folks only have to pay the train fare for Christmas.” He shrugs. “My dad’s not making as much money as he was before the war.”

“What does he do?” As much as we’ve talked and been together, I still don’t know much about his family. He rarely mentions them. I only know about his sister, and he speaks highly of his mother.

“Sales. Carpet sales. Business was booming, then,” he makes a nose-dive motion with his hand. “They’re really struggling just to keep me here.”

The thought of him ever having to leave makes my stomach actually ache. I limp over to him on my cane. Stanpole has me on a schedule. I’m to use it for only two hours a day. No more. No less.

“You think they’d ever make you leave?” I ask him.

“No, no,” he shakes his head. “They can swing it, and they know I like it here. I just wish the circumstances were better.”

I feel a nervous energy bloom inside me. “Well, if you’re not going home…would you want to come home with me?”

He smiles.

“I mean, just so you’re not stuck here.”

He gazes at me for a few seconds. It makes my face heat up.

“I’d really like that,” he replies. “I really would.”

I send Althea another telegram. I let her know about my plus one.

Finny will be joining us for Thanksgiving.

* * *

We ride down on the train and arrive on Wednesday morning.

Already my house is filling up. Cora enlisted her daughter Izzy for help. Grandma DuBois sits on the front porch and doesn’t know who I am until I remind her. Randy plays with my cousins. I’m still not completely sure of all their names. Grandpa and Grandma Forrester sit in the parlor and complain about the radio, _what an eyesore_ , but they turn it up when Roosevelt starts talking. My Uncle Victor and Aunt Ethel shake their heads and say “isn’t it a pity” about everyone and everything. And dad’s got a cigar, momma’s got her bourbon, and Althea spins around and hugs me, marveling over my semi-normal-looking leg.

This is fine.

Finny’s here and my family’s here and it’s fine.

I hope.

By dinner time, there’s more aunts and uncles, and the house gets noisy. Everyone is dressed to the nines. Fine china, eau de toilette, gloves, pocket watches, and please, and thank you kindly, and this is how it is. No one behaves like a field hand loitering around the delta. Everyone politely introduces themselves to Finny, asks about my leg, and continues to drink. And they drink a lot. Grandpa DuBois’ bourbon is served and there’s ambrosia wine for my mother. Finny watches her with a sadness in his eyes and looks at me with sympathy. I begin to second-guess my confession.

After dinner, the men convene in the library and the ladies in the parlor. Finny and I stand around with my dad, his only living brother, a few other uncles on my mother’s side, and Grandpa Forrester as they discuss war, politics, and divide up the Montgomery kingdom. Cigar and cigarette smoke hangs blue-gray in the lights and Uncle Victor stops by Finny and me, winks like he’s having a stroke, and pours shots of bourbon in our glasses.

I look at Finny, he looks at me, we smile and shrug, clink our glasses together, and take a sip.

I almost spit it out, but I don’t want to look dumb. Finny makes a face, but keeps drinking. I tell him about Grandpa DuBois, and he examines the bourbon in his glass with fascination. Uncle Victor comes by another time and my head starts to feel funny. I feel like I could tap dance on both my feet. Finny’s face gets pink, and he’s laughing at jokes I doubt he really gets.

At some point, someone turns on the radio, and Bing Crosby comes through just as clear as the evening sky and that’s when I decide:

I’ve had about enough of this.

I look outside at the shading crepe myrtles, and go look for Althea. The bourbon makes me unsteady, but I feel fine. I feel great! I really do. I have an odd understanding as to why my mother enjoys this so much.

I limp into the parlor and pull Althea into the foyer. “Can you watch the back door for me?”

“Why?” She looks like she’s had a glass full of something herself. It was probably our Aunt Ethel.

“I’m going to take Finny outside for a walk.” The last part kind of slurs together.

She raises a brow and peers into the library. Finny’s engrossed in a hunting story one of my uncles is telling. “Don’t you think that’s a little bit risky?”

“It’s just a walk. It’s too smoky in here, and the kids are all out front.”

She bites her lip, considers. “Fine. I’ll watch the door, but don’t be long.”

“I won’t.”

I go into the library and pull Finny up from a chair. “Let’s go outside for a bit.”

“Okay, sure.” He gulps down the rest of his glass, and his eyes are positively shining.

Yeah. I’ve had about enough.

We go outside to the crepe myrtles, and I turn to see Althea in the window by the door, drinking and swaying a little to music. I don’t know exactly where we’re going or what I’m doing and I’m not drunk. Or, I don’t know. Maybe.

“God, your family’s a blast,” Finny says lightly. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a Thanksgiving like this.”

“It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

“There’s going to be more of this tomorrow?”

“Probably.”

I lead him through the trees and it’s sort of cool, but not cold, in the breeze. I tell him a little bit about them, but I’m not sure if I’m making sense. There’s an owl hooting somewhere. The music and lights fade from the house, and I stop us somewhere in the middle. Finny looks up at the sky and it’s barely gotten dark. Still just enough light.

So…what am I going to do again?

Just kiss him? See how he reacts? He might hit me. I don’t really think he’d hit me, but what if he does? What if he laughs? Laughing would be just as bad.

“It’s so pretty out here,” he says. His eyes are the tiniest bit bloodshot. “I can’t imagine having all of this. All this land and the big house. It’s sensational.”

“It’s not that great. It’s not mine anyway.”

“Won’t it be some day?”

“No. I have an older brother. This will all go to him. Not me.”

He tilts his head. “Really? Where is he?”

“In France. He’s a marine.”

Finny nods, looks off somewhere, then says, “This is all different for me. My family isn’t like this. It’s just my parents, me, and Tabitha. And we don’t have all this. I mean, our house is nice, Boston is nice.” He pauses for a moment. “And aside from us, half our family lives in Michigan and the other half is in New Jersey. I hardly see any of them.”

I really think I’d like that. Most of these people I wouldn’t care to ever see again, but the bit of unhappiness on his face makes me keep that to myself.

And this is stupid. I think about how stupid this is as he takes a step towards me and my mouth goes completely dry.

“I really appreciate you inviting me,” he says softly.

A breeze comes through and stirs a lock of his hair.

Oh, God. I’m going to die.

“You’re welcome,” I reply.

“Seriously. You’re a good friend.”

“I just didn’t want you to be alone.”

He takes another step towards me, and I can smell the bourbon on his breath. We’re not quite drunk. We’re on the entrance ramp to drunk. I think. Maybe we are drunk. I’m not sure. I just know that he’s so close to me right now, and I’ve frozen on the spot, and all that liquid courage was for naught.

He’s looking me right in the eyes, then they shift down to my mouth. I stand perfectly still and let him come just a centimeter closer.

“Do you think,” he whispers. “Do you think that…?”

He stops right there, and I’m hanging on to those last words like hanging off a cliff. He looks down at my feet, and I muster up all the bravery I can, and take a teeny tiny step towards him. Kissing-distance step.

And then he puts a hand up to my face, like he’s confused about it, and my face gets so tingly and hot, and the breath is going in and out, in and out, of my nose so fast. Can he hear it? Am I breathing too loud?

I tilt my head, inviting. There’s a question in his eyes. A question I’m about ready to answer.

And just when I start thinking it was really this simple all along, there’s steps on the grass. Quick steps. We pull apart, and my face gets cold when he takes his hand away. We step away from each other, and I see someone coming towards us.

“It’s just me,” Althea calls, running over. She grabs my hand. “Gene, you’ve got to come inside.”

“Why?”

“Tanner’s come home.”

* * *

Finny and I walk back into a crowd piled into the foyer.

I don’t see him right away. There’s snow-white heads, gray-heads, blond, and brunette heads bobbing around someone in the middle. Then there’s a part, and I see my mother hanging off the neck of a tall man in uniform, all the makeup smearing on her face from the tears.

Tanner’s almost twenty-six, but he looks years older than I remember. It’s been almost three years since I’ve seen him. He wears his marine blue, carries a duffel bag, and looks around at everyone as if they’re the least interesting things in his life. He swings Althea up in a hug, ruffles Randy’s hair, and my mother won’t let go long enough for him to get to anyone else.

“Who is that?” Finny whispers to me.

“That’s my brother. Tanner.”

My moment outside with him is all but forgotten as Tanner takes center stage. When his eyes finally find mine, he juts his chin out, and gives me that look: _this will be my house some day; this will all be mine and you’ll get nothing._

He used to say that when we were younger. All the time. When he’d come home on a vacation from school, he’d mutter it under his breath, a snide smile on his face, while I just stood there. I would just stand still and say nothing, like I’m doing right now. He knew his place, and I knew mine. The extra Forrester boy, just in case Tanner does something stupid. Like falls off a tree.

He waves to me, and I wave back. My mother won’t let him move an inch and dad’s as proud as a peacock. He tries to answer a million questions being fired at him and about a million more words of gratitude. I’m annoyed, angry, just plain mad, that he chose this time to show up. And I’m leaning on a cane, while he’s upright, and the guy I almost kissed is standing by my side.

And wouldn’t he love to know that? Wouldn’t he love to have something else to hold over me.

“Wow, did you know he was coming?” Finny says, looking at me with surprise.

“No.”

They get him into the parlor, and now he’s saying he got some leave for the holidays. He’ll be here until after Christmas and there’s some cheering, my mother’s crying, and I just stand there.

Now, I’ve really had enough.

I make my way to the stairs.

“Aren’t you going to go say hi?” Finny asks as I start to climb.

“We waved. That was enough.”

No one even notices. I can go up quicker than I used to, but Finny helps anyway. When we get into my bedroom, I sit down on the bed and my blood is just throbbing with something. There are too many things mixing together, churning and stirring inside me. I didn’t plan on this. I didn’t plan on any of this at all. And Finny’s all puzzled by my silence, but I couldn’t explain it to him. I can’t really understand it myself.

But everyone’s distracted now. Very much distracted and they’ll be down there hanging off of Tanner’s every word for a while. I look over at Finny. He and I were in the middle of something before that shining beacon of Forrester pride blessed us with his presence.

I stand up. I go over to Finny, hanging in the corner, I go right up to him, I get close. “I want,” I begin, and let the rest of the words tumble out in one breath, “to kiss you.”

And there it is.

It’s out of me now.

And as absurd as this is, as batshit crazy that I would do this when my soldier brother has just come home, I can’t think of a better time. Will there ever be a better time?

His eyes are wide, his breath is quick. For one horrible, petrifying moment, I think he’s going to push me away, but his hand comes up to my face again - dear God that hand - and his lips collide against mine, sweetly, trembling.

And it’s like touching a petal, silky-tender, tasting faintly of bourbon. There’s a timidness to it, shallow, and I think about when I run my finger over the rim of a glass; skating along the edges of the rink. I respond to it, measured, getting a feel for him in soft strokes until he pulls away.

“Gene…,” he breathes.

I let it linger for just a couple seconds before I dig the fingers of both my hands in his shirt and pull him towards me. The cane falls to the floor with a loud thwack. I fall back onto my bed with him on top of me, and I feel every inch of him against me, his tongue dipping into my mouth, and my arms are around him, his arms are around me. And we’re kissing each other like we’ve been starved, and I think that it’s true.

I’m dying. I’m dying right now in Finny’s arms with his breathless kisses on me, and my thoughts bounce around on a sea of bourbon, bumping into one another, but I’m able to grasp at the one that reminds me my whole family is just one Tobias-original-wood-floor away.

I slow our hungry kiss, easing it back to like the first one was. He softens in my arms, groans softly into my mouth, and every inch of me feels as if it’s been set on fire.

He pulls away again, leans his cheek against mine. “Oh, God, Gene…oh my God…you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that.”

“Me, too.” And I’m just shaking from the euphoria pounding through me, from the way his breath feels in my ear, from the weight of him on me, from the long wade across the river to get to this point.

There’s a crescendo in the conversation downstairs. He gets off me and we sit up. I feel even dizzier than with the bourbon. And this is stupid. This is a really stupid thing to do, but I don’t care. Everyone - literally everyone - in my family is downstairs, and I don’t even care. It’s exciting in a way. Dangerous. Risky. Like leaping from a tree into muddy water.

“You think your sister saw us?” Finny asks. “Outside?”

“No, and it wouldn’t matter. She knows about you. I told her -” I shut my mouth quick. Damn the liquor and damn his lips for putting a chink in my armor.

“You told her what?” Finny looks genuinely upset.

“I told her how I feel about you.”

“How do you feel about me?” His voice is barely a whisper.

I turn to him. His lips are red and full, his hair a little messy. I slide one hand around his neck and crush our lips together, choosing to say it this way, and once I’ve started now I can’t stop. If this is what addiction is, if this is how my mother feels when she takes a drink, then I can’t blame her. I really can’t. Finny’s hands come up to frame my face and my hand finds a knot of muscle in his arm and I squeeze him there.

I pull away from him, afraid I’ll take this further than I’m prepared to go right now. I lean my forehead against his, and his breath is quick and warm and he rasps out, “I think I’m going to die. I feel like I’m going to die.”

“Me too,” I breathe into the space between us. “Me too.”

* * *

We can’t make out all evening.

There’s goodbyes to say to the family members that won’t be staying. I stand down in the foyer and say my farewells, receive hugs, and remind Grandma DuBois who I am again. And she says, “Oh, you’re the one up at that school in the Yukon where they hunt the moose and eat blubber,” and I just smile and say yes.

Finny sits on the the stairs, and I keep looking over at him, wondering if I look just as worried blended with delight. It’s weird. I’ll admit it’s weird to be talking to Grandma and Grandpa Forrester after what Finny and I just did. But I compartmentalize that away, because nobody knows a thing, and then I catch Althea looking from me to him, the faintest of smiles on her lips, and she flounces away into the parlor.

And when Tanner goes up to his room it’s a whole thing. My mother won’t leave him the hell alone and keeps telling him to have a slice of the pecan pie Grandma DuBois made for him. She makes it every year in his honor.

“I’m awful tired, momma,” he says, lumbering down the hall to his room. “I’ll be around for a while and her pecan pie will keep.”

My mother drags Cora into Tanner’s old bedroom to help get his things put away. He looks down the hall at me standing outside of my bedroom, Finny just an innocent bystander.

“Good to see you, Gene,” Tanner waves. “You’ve grown like a weed.”

He hasn’t even noticed. I’m standing there, leaning on a cane, and that asshole hasn’t even noticed.

Tanner squints at Finny, “Geez Louise, how many more cousins we got now?”

“This is a friend of mine from school,” I growl. “Phineas.”

“Phineas, eh?” Tanner ambles over, and he’s the tall marine who smells faintly of ivory soap and musk, and I feel like little Eugene, standing still, fragile as the autumn leaves. “Know a fella in Rouen named Phineas.”

Finny just stands there, too, and it’s a hold Tanner has. His very aura puts a hold on people. He can just stand there and look at you and you’ll do exactly what he says, think exactly what he wants, and he’s the perfect sergeant. Every single guy under his command has never once questioned him. Guaranteed.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Finny sticks out a hand. And this is really all kinds of ridiculous. I didn’t time this well at all, but a sensation of dark thrill and defiance trickles inside me when Finny shakes Tanner’s hand.

“Good to have you,” Tanner shakes back and turns to go in his room. “See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight,” Finny offers.

Good riddance, I think.

I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to Tanner. I really wouldn’t. I actually don’t want the responsibility or to bear the weight of what would be expected of me if he were gone. Especially not now. And one day, when the war is over, and he’s home, claiming himself a Montgomery girl from an esteemed family, I won’t ever have to deal with him again. I could actually move to the Yukon if I wanted to.

Everyone goes to bed.

Finny and I go to bed. I let him get into mine, from the left side, and I tell him he can’t fall asleep here. If we fall asleep at all. He slips a finger under the sleeve of my shirt, pulling it up, and kisses my arm from wrist to elbow. It’s so intimate, so gentle, I don’t know how to react.

“I don’t want you to think,” I whisper, “that I brought you here just to…I wasn’t trying to…”

He lays an arm across me. “I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

“No one’s going to pay any attention to me now. Tanner’s home. He’s the star.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

I wonder what gave it away. “We’ve never really gotten along. He’s going to inherit everything. My dad could leave me the sofa, but if Tanner doesn’t want me to have it, then I’ll get nothing.”

“Is that important to you?”

“No. Not really. I never really wanted anything. I guess I just taught myself not to want things. If it was never going to be mine, why want after it.”

And is that really what it is? I have often tried to give a name to that feeling. It’s like passing by the candy in a shop, like watching ice cubes in a glass of iced tea on a hot summer day. It’s not really yours. You can want it with all your might, but something has to happen first. It has to want you back or it must be given to you. Desire is only half the equation. The rest of it isn’t up to you.

He props himself up on an elbow and turns my face to his. It’s insane. It’s just plain insane how he can look at me like that and everything is instantly better. Even just a little. And I wrote out half of the equation. The only reason why it’s solvable is because Finny filled in the rest himself.

“I can’t seem to stop telling you things,” I say to him. “Things I’ve never said out loud before.”

His eyes roam around my face for a second. “You know, when Tabitha was born, she was sick all the time. She’d stop breathing, wouldn’t eat. My mom would have to take her to the hospital two or three times a week. Then when she got older, she just wasn’t right. She didn’t say her first word until she was four, and she never laughed or anything. I used to get so upset about it. For one thing, they’d forget about me. And the other thing was, I worried about her. Before my first year away at school, Tabitha couldn’t eat by herself. She needed someone to feed her. To help her into bed. I thought if I helped out enough, it would take some of the strain off my mother.” He pauses there and turns onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “So, I go off to school. Then when I come back, Tabitha is doing great. She can feed herself. She doesn’t need help with hardly anything. I thought it was me. I thought I was the reason she improved. Because I was gone.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sound so serious. Not like this. Flat and even like a smooth grade. And I honestly had never thought he’d ever had any trouble in his life. Definitely not at school and certainly not at home.

“The point is,” he continues. “I had the choice to stay in Boston. But after I saw how much she’d improved when I was gone, I thought it was best I wasn’t home.” He turns his face to me. “Then I met you.”

He says it with a hopeful smile, the spark of something new and bright after hiding in darkness. And I wonder then, if after all that, I was that spark. While I grumbled, and envied, and watched him charm and shine, he was clinging to me, holding on to something I couldn’t see.

His lips are like a song - any song, every song - sonatas, waltzes in the twilight, and an orchestra sending sweet sounds through the air, winding around me, tightening and tuning like a chord. I get so lost inside it, so overcome with a wave of desire, of awe, of completeness, of the way his lips coax open my own, sliding his tongue inside, and oh my GOD, I’m going to die, that I nearly fall out of my bed.

He pulls me to him, takes my arms and links them around him, his thumb resting on my jaw.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers.

“Yes you do,” I whisper back. “You really do.”


	6. Chapter 6

Grandpa Forrester stands at the table like Moses on Mount Sinai.

He can’t stand for too long, but he does his idiotic speech he does every year. He’s just a few years older than when his own father began to lose his mind, and just recently I’ve noticed he’s started to slip. He broke into a fit of curses and racial slurs with Cora and Izzy in the room, embarrassing Uncle Victor, and he took Grandpa Forrester outside until dinner was ready. He fell asleep in the porch swing. He hasn’t necessarily escaped all that badness just yet. He never hauled illicit booze all over Montgomery, but he did run the horse track and allegedly scammed some Bowlings and Uptons out of thousands. No one can prove anything, but my parents thought it was best for Althea to invite some of the Bowling and Upton girls to her cotillion, even ones she didn’t know. Just for courtesy’s sake.

All of them politely declined.

Finny and I sit stiff as boards with Althea in between us. She makes good-natured conversation with him while the turkey is carved. Not one single Forrester has killed the Thanksgiving turkey in many moons. Last time might have been after the stocks crashed, and it wasn’t anyone in this room. Uncle Alvin the Gambler killed one when I was little, brought it over, trying to redeem himself, but he got into a fight with my dad, grabbed it off the table, stuffing flying everywhere, and drove off with it.

So. No more killing the turkey.

Market turkey it is now.

Tanner is at one end, my mother right next to him, and she’s just beaming and bleary-eyed while Tanner tells war tales. As soon as he opens his mouth, I’m not hungry. I see Randy over at the kids’ table, craning his neck for a listen and hardly taking a bite. It’s just as well. If Tanner has to be here, if we have to listen to him bullshit his way into everyone’s romantic-hero-hearts, then I’ll just endure it.

“I can’t believe he’s here,” Althea whispers. “I don’t know how he got such a long leave. Did you hear about what happened in France last week?”

“Nope.” I sit back and tap restlessly at the chair arms.

“We’re lucky he’s all in one piece. It was murder. Absolute murder.”

“Yeah.”

I peek over at Finny, who’s politely paying attention. I wish I could drag him away from the table and go upstairs, but I think my parents would more than notice that.

Althea gives me a little twinkly smile and whispers, “Do you want to switch seats?”

“Probably shouldn’t.”

“He’s real sweet, Gene. I’m happy for you. I really am.”

“Can we not talk about this here?”

“All I’m saying is, if I found someone who looked at me the way he looks at you, I’d be the luckiest girl in all of Montgomery.”

I tell her to be quiet, and she smiles her twinkly smile again. But now I’m wondering…how does he look when he looks at me? I catch Finny’s eyes over Althea’s head, and he gives me a dreamy half-smile. Is that how he looks? His eyes a soft green light and that little half-smile, accentuating the dimple in his cheek?

I find something else to look at before I do something stupid. Missouri Minerva is watching us from the mantle as if it’s her phantasmal duty to keep us all in line. Just a couple frames down from her is Urbanus DuBois, the first DuBois in Baton Rouge. He set up house and eventually built a profitable indigo plantation. Well, his slaves did. He didn’t do shit. His first daughter died from small pox. His second daughter was kicked to death by a horse. His third daughter wandered into the bayou and never returned. He was convinced his slaves were putting voodoo on him and his family, so he strung up the three he suspected from a willow tree on the property. The willow tree was struck by lightening, fell on his wife in the carriage, and Urbanus lost his mind, jumped from the church bell tower, and killed himself.

No hope. Zero.

Dinner winds down and Tanner finally shuts up. Within the general chatter and commentary on Tanner’s bravery, Althea says casually, “You boys ought to go for a walk while this warm spell lasts. It’ll be chilly by morning when you two leave.”

Finny gets up. Althea helps me up, and I give her a grateful look. No one notices at all. Finny and I leave through the back door, and he’s got a good excuse to be holding onto my left arm as we walk into the crepe myrtles with my right arm leaning on the cane. When we’re far enough away, branches shading us like an umbrella, I stand against the trunk and he leans into me, one hand around my neck and the other around my waist, and kisses me with a longing sigh. I’m trembling from the anticipation, the risk, the absolute want for him. He’s slow about it, spending time on my bottom lip, my top lip, before plunging his tongue into my mouth, and the brush of his against mine makes us groan at the same time. I slide my fingers into his hair, not caring if I mess it up - I can fix it back - and he breaks away from my lips and begins kissing my neck. I tilt my head to one side to give him access. He can have all he wants.

I’m dying. Really. I’m hot. It’s hot out here, my heart feels like a bongo drum, and I’m shaking like I’m cold. And in between kisses he’s nipping at my skin lightly, and it’s making me think things, and it’s making me want things, and it’s making me consider doing things I shouldn’t out here.

Insanity. This is total insanity.

He kisses his way back to my face and pauses. “I can’t believe this is happening. You have no idea…no idea.”

“I think I do.” I kiss his lips, his chin. He cups my face in his hands, one thumb stroking lightly. “What were you going to say last night?”

“Last night?”

“When we were out here. You said, ‘do you think that’ and you didn’t finish.”

“Oh.” His eyes shift away from me for a second. “Nothing really. I don’t remember now.” His gaze shifts back. “Is it still going to be like this? At Devon?”

“I hope so. I want it to.”

He smiles. Then it fades. “I was so scared, you know, when you fell. I was scared you’d be paralyzed or worse you’d die. I was so worried, Gene. I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. Looking over at your bed, knowing you’d never come back. And I thought, when you were okay, or mostly okay, I shouldn’t take another second with you for granted.” He leans his head against mine. “And I’d do anything, absolutely anything, to keep you safe.”

A knot coils up in my stomach. There’s a dull ache in my leg. “It was an accident, and my leg’s better. Getting better. And I would’ve done the same for you.” I mean it. I really mean it. “I would’ve taken care of you, too.”

He wraps me up in his arms, a quick kiss to my cheek, and I put my arms around him, and we stand there like that for awhile. Until it’s time to go back inside and pretend. Pretend we’re just good friends, good roommates and friends, and our words just fade with the setting sun.

* * *

We’re supposed to leave in the morning, bright and early.

I can’t really sleep. I’m filled with something that edges closer and closer to need. Not a want, a _need_. We’ll be all alone in our room soon enough, but it’s still too long, so he gets into bed with me again, and it’s like we’re still trying to figure this out. Still trying to understand what this means, but we’ll just make out some more before we have to think about it, before we have to talk about it. Before we have to say what _it_ is exactly.

If he were a girl, I’d take him to a movie and hold his hand, two straws in a soda, hands joined and swinging through a walk in the park, hormone engines revving in the backseat of a car. I’d write about him in letters and talk about him to our friends. But he’s not a girl and we’re both eaten up with some kind of sickness, some kind of fever that makes me want to kiss him breathless; that makes my fingertips find a soft patch of skin under his shirt and touch him there, stroking soft small patterns, knowing and not knowing what it is that I want.

Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Is this what it is? To really and truly need someone? I avoid digging around in my mind for how this all came about, for what could have happened to him if I’d let that badness take me over. I’m taken over by something else now, and it’s got me, he’s got me, and I don’t want him to let go.

* * *

It’s late in the evening when our train arrives.

There were a few delays, and we both dozed off from being up till nearly sunrise. It doesn’t look funny that he’s got his arm linked through mine since I’m limping around. I could actually put more weight on my right leg if I wanted to, but I enjoy the constant contact, and I can tell he does, too.

The dormitory is mostly empty. Everyone is expected back Sunday, but there are a few stragglers who either had a home too far from school or couldn’t hack the train fare. It’s gone up since the war started, and I hope Finny’s parents don’t remove him from Devon. He hasn’t said anything else about it, and I suppose that’s because he’s distracted. By me.

We collapse on my bed, laughing and travel-worn, and the newfound privacy we have settles in around us. This room is going to be different now. We’re different now.

Finny gets us situated on the bed so my leg is comfortable. He cuddles up next to me and we lay in silence for a time. I start to think that it always could have been this way. All this time, I was blind and convinced the thing between us, the thing that caused me such discomfort, was an unspoken competition. But that wasn’t it. It literally took me falling out of a tree to see it for what it really was.

“Finny,” I whisper.

He turns his face to me.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. I just…feel like I should tell you I’m sorry.” Sorry for thinking you were going to eclipse me. Sorry for taking your kindness for granted. Sorry for nearly knocking you off a tree.

He can’t know. He can’t ever, ever know my intentions that day. He thinks it was the rubbed off bark and that’s going to be the official story. I decide to wipe away the past, clear it from my thoughts, my memories, and let it all disappear into oblivion. What matters is now. Not before.

“You don’t have to be sorry about anything.” He perches himself over me. “Not a thing.”

I reach up to his face, my fingertips brushing his lips, just lightly. They follow the line of his jaw, tracing the curve of his neck to his shoulder. “Kiss me,” I breathe.

Our lips meet in a slow caress, just a taste, a promise. Slow and smooth, the act, the way he breathes, the way he’s so close to me makes the past disappear, swirl down a drain, until every last drop is completely gone. I reach down and pull his shirt out of his pants, reach underneath to touch him right above his hip bone, and he deepens our kiss. Leaning on one elbow, he imitates my gesture, his fingers gliding up my ribs, pulling up my shirt, exposing.

He pulls away. “Is this okay?”

I reach up to pull his lips back down to mine, and in a flurry of awkward movement the pesky clothing is removed, and his naked torso is flush with my own. He settles in between my legs, careful of the right one, and I can feel a bulge under his pants rubbing against mine. I’m going to die. It’s too much, but it’s not enough, and my hands are on his back, fingers splayed, studying the ridges and curves of his shoulders, gliding down the soft bumps of his spine. Is this what it is? I keep thinking that while I touch him and his lips leave my face and press to the skin of my chest. I keep thinking I should stop this, but I want it to continue. I keep thinking this is what he feels like: flesh and bone, breath and skin.

And it’s new. It’s very, very new. Also reckless. Very, very reckless.

His hand finds its way down my front and to my belt. I swallow a bolt of nerves. “Finny…”

His hand freezes. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I don’t know.” I answer honestly. “I’ve never done this before, and I don’t know.”

He’s freeze-framed above me, hair tousled from my fingers, one green eye glowing brighter than the other in the moonlight. The sight of him takes my breath away. How did I not see it before?

His shifts his weight and lays alongside me. “It’s okay. I haven’t done this before either.”

We lay there in awkward silence for a minute or so. Then I turn to him. “What are we going to do when everyone comes back?”

“What we’ve been doing. You’ll still need my help.”

In more ways than one.

“I know, but Brinker and Leper are always coming in here, Brinker running his mouth. They could walk in. Or someone could hear us.”

“The door locks.” He turns his face to mine, in the way he did before at home, and everything is instantly better. “And we’ll have to be quiet.”

Simple. Easy. He has all the solutions.

I turn as best I can and pull him into my arms. I kiss his shoulder, his neck, then we’re nose-to-nose, he playfully rubs his against mine, and I smile and he smiles. And I feel…safe. He’ll keep me safe, like he says. And I believe him.

I believe him with my whole heart.

* * *

We get into another routine.

The door is locked the night before, and we wake up in my bed. Sometimes fully clothed and sometimes only partially. Finny helps me get ready, like he did before, and we’re off to start our day. The excuse, the reason he’s with me all the time, is to help me around. And, honestly, I don’t need that much of it. Not anymore. I meet with Dr. Stanpole a couple times a week, and he says I might be able to run and play sports in the Spring, just like before.

So, I’m not exactly helpless. Stairs are still hard, and I can’t walk that fast. But I might be over-exaggerating my limp a little bit. Just a little.

But I want to be with him. I want him with me all day and all night. We’re careful not to look at each other for too long and not to make too many excuses to stay in our room. But it happens. It happens more than it probably should. And in the evenings, after dinner, when we should be tending to our studies, we get into my bed, under the covers, and make out. A lot.

Like…a lot.

I let myself explore, I let myself give in to more and more. I get used to the feel of him beside me as I fall asleep, chest-to-chest, arms and legs tangled. I get used to his fingers threading through mine, his breath in my ear. I get used to the feel of his lips, wet and soft, kissing pathways across my stomach. I get used to him undressing me as I undress him and then we’re just in our underpants. One more layer left.

And sometimes it gets heated, I’m caught up, I forget where I am, who I am, and what I should be studying for. He’ll rub his hips against me, a soft moan escapes, and I respond with the same. Then…I don’t know. I tell him we should stop, and he does, and I don’t know why. I want him. I _want_ him. But something nags at me, like a little bird pecking somewhere in my brain, and I can’t. We’re surrounded in that dorm, restricted, and I don’t want to be restrained. I don’t want to have to keep quiet and pretend.

On a slow Saturday afternoon, Brinker comes by, running his mouth about stupid shit. I’m not really paying attention as he blabs to Finny about something or other. I’m trying to catch up on all the reading I missed during the week. Then he starts talking about how Mr. Ludsbury leaves on some weekends, going to wherever, and he stashes some brandy in his study.

“I wish I knew where the key was,” Brinker says. “We could bring it down to the Butt Room and have a good old time, eh?” He nudges Finny, who looks like he’s done with this conversation.

“He probably keeps the key with him,” Finny says.

“Yeah, but you’d think he’d have an extra somewhere. Like a house key hidden or something.”

“A study isn’t the same as a house.”

“Or a master key,” Brinker says thoughtfully.

“I don’t know,” Finny shrugs.

Then I keep reading and Brinker keeps yapping, then he finally wanders off to go bother someone else. Once he’s down the hall, I turn to Finny. “God, he’s stupid. Does he really think he’s going to steal brandy from Ludsbury?”

Finny goes over to the door and shuts it. He stands against it. “I know where the key is.”

“What?”

“One time, when you were in Stanpole’s office, and I was waiting out in the hall, I heard Ludsbury talking to the secretary. He told her he has an extra key. And where he puts it.” I watch him come across the room, his face full of excitement. “We should go. Tonight.”

“Are we sure he’s really gone, though? Brinker might have just been full of it.”

“What would he be doing in his study on a Saturday night?”

“Drinking all his brandy. Being a dick. I don’t know.”

“We should go.” He repeats. “If there’s brandy, then we can have it. Why not?” He pauses there, looking at me meaningfully. “And there won’t be anybody around. At all.”

And then I’m sold.

We wait until everyone is down in the Butt Room, and the ones who aren’t are going to bed. Ludsbury’s study is in a whole different building, and when we get outside there’s about six inches of snow on the ground. It starts coming down again just as we’re getting in and we find it. I listen at the door to make sure Ludsbury is actually gone. Finny reaches up to the door frame, feels around, and pulls down a key.

“Told you,” he winks.

And then we’re inside. I shut and lock the door and Finny turns on a lamp. It’s a nice study. Lots of nautical stuff everywhere, which I didn’t peg him for. A ship wheel on one wall, navigation tool on another. There’s a dark fireplace on one end, a desk adjacent. There’s a big bottle of brandy in the bottom drawer, complete with two glasses, as if Ludsbury has been in here entertaining. Really doubt anyone actually comes to see him.

Within a few minutes, we’ve got a fire going, and a glass of brandy each. It’s only slightly better than Grandpa DuBois’ bourbon. There’s an antique-looking sofa and a wing-backed chair by the fire. We take a seat and drink to small, random occurrences.

“You think anybody’s going to look for us?” Finny asks, taking another swig.

“Probably not.” I take another drink too, and see a pile of papers on a table nearby. I begin to shuffle through them.

He gets up from the sofa and goes to sit in the chair. He puts his ankle on his knee and holds out his glass. “Do I look like a headmaster?”

“Maybe half of one,” I smile and he laughs. “Why does he have these?” I hold out pages of Latin poems. Pages and pages of poems. “He’s got Ovid. And Catullus.”

“Who?” Finny leans forward curiously.

“The same ones you’re supposed to be reading for class,” I chuckle. “I didn’t know Ludsbury was a poet. That’s kind of weird.”

He waves his hand to the side. “You’re way better at that stuff than me.” Then a smile curls around his lips. “Say, why don’t you read one?”

“What?”

“Here.” He points to the rug in front of the fireplace. “Stand over here.”

“I’m not standing over there,” I laugh.

“Please,” he gives me such a smile, _such_ a smile. “Read me a poem, Gene.”

Damn him and that smile. How can I say no?

I go stand in front of the fire, one hand leaning and the other holding up a passage from Amores. I feel kind of silly reading a Latin love poem in front of the fire in Ludsbury’s study. More than silly. The whole thing is comical to me at first, and I try to make it so. I over-dramatize my voice; a small chuckle from Finny rewards my attempt. I almost start laughing myself at how ridiculous this is, and I think that’s just because of the brandy, but Finny’s amused smile slowly begins to give way into another look. His eyes intensify, his lips parting slightly.

I read, “Soles occidere et redire possunt…”

He gets up, sets down his glass, and comes over to me.

“Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”

I’m aware of him behind me, closing the distance between his chest and my back. Two arms slide around my waist, and then I feel his petal-soft lips on my neck. I stop. My breath hitches.

“Keep reading,” he whispers.

I start again, voice unsteady. “Da mi basia m-mille, deinde c-centum, d-dein mille altera, dein secunda c-centum…”

His kisses are light, like a paintbrush delivering feathery strokes to my skin. It gives me chills. My skin pulls tight.

“Dein, cum milia multa f-fecerimus…”

His hands find their way to the front of my shirt. His fingers begin to undo the buttons.

One.

“Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus..”

Two.

“Aut ne quis malus invidere possit..”

Three.

“Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.”

One hand slides into my shirt, brushing over my skin. I stop again. I’m at the end, but I couldn’t read anymore if I wanted to. His hand slides across my chest, fingertips tantalizingly stopped by a nipple. The other hand is hovering over my belt buckle, stealthily traveled and I wonder if he’s thought about this.

His lips pause at my earlobe, and he breathes so softly, “Can I touch you, Gene?”

“Yes.” It’s out of me before he even says my name.

And then he turns me around, removing my shirt, my pants, and I’m naked, completely naked, and he sets me down in the chair. I try to remove his shirt, but he takes my hands away, putting them at my sides. He kisses down my chest, over my stomach, my hip.

“Finny…” I can hardly catch my breath.

He looks up at me, and places his lips softly on the faint purple spot on my leg. “Gene…”

I know what he’s going to do, he’s on his knees, and I know, but it must be the brandy, I can blame that later, because I don’t stop him from taking me in his mouth. The sensation isn’t as sudden as I was expecting. He’s careful about it, the movements of a novice, tentative and eager. And then the poem balls up in my fist, crushing the paper, as he finds a rhythm, and I really think I’m going to die now.

The poem is just a balled up mess, getting damp in my palm, and I don’t care what kinds of noises I’m making or what I’m even saying. I really think that fire is going to come at me, consume me, and I’ll just be a pile of ashes. I’ll blow away, swirling around into nothing. Fire must feel like this: hungry, scorching, and insatiable.

_Insatiable, insatiable._ The word gets stuck, like a record skip, and when he groans, I can feel it. And I think this is what it is, this is what it is - warm and wet, crumpled paper, and hardened flesh. _This is what it is._ I feel a coil of heat begin to unravel inside me and I stutter out something, a choking breath, and try to warn him. With one hand gripping my hip, he places the other, ever so delicately, against my stomach. And it’s that soft touch, coupled with his mouth, that does it. That’s what pulls at me from the inside and crushes the poem into a useless ball in my fist.

I fall back, panting and sweating, and his hand is still there, palm pressed to my navel, and I wonder if he could feel it. He places a kiss to my thigh, and looks up at me. There’s a flicker, just a light of something, and it could have just been the fire. It could have been…

_Insatiable._

And then I’m on him, just two breaths, that’s all I needed. I pull his clothes off, balancing myself as best I can, I lay him back on that rug in front of the hungry fire, and I feel his hips jerk at the brush of my bare skin. I kiss him, thirsty for my own taste, and it lingers, and I think I’m dead. I’d have to be dead. Nothing in life can possibly feel this way. And I want to, I want to, I _want_ it - but I get shy as I get closer. My lips linger too long on his stomach, and he turns my head up to meet his gaze.

“You don’t have to,” he whispers.

But I want to.

This is what I want to do for him.

And I don’t know what I’m doing. Not at first, but it’s like an instinct kicks in, something from somewhere. Something out of nothing. And I close my eyes and fully tune myself into him. Every sound he makes, the pull of his stomach, each shaking breath, because within it all he’s telling me what he wants. What he likes. One of my hands finds his and holds on. I feel the brush of the fingers of his other hand on my cheek, just as soft as they lay on my stomach. I look up and he’s watching me, his emerald gaze seeming to fade in and out, in and out, in and out. _In and out._

They stay that way, until they squeeze shut, his hand is clenching mine like a vise, and I hold on, I just hold on as he falls over the edge that I have just come back from, like I can pull him back. Like I can keep him safe. My hand comes up to cover my mouth, as if I’ve just said something that I shouldn’t.

“Come up here. Come here,” he pleads.

I lay beside him. He snakes his arms around me, shaking. I push a piece of hair from the sweat on his forehead. He kisses me, his tongue seeking, his body damp and limp and warm, and his eyes burning like an eerie green fire. My hands slide all over him, searching, needing, and I feel like liquid. I might just seep into this rug, I might just saturate him, and I think I want to. I think I want to drown. In those eyes. In this night.

I died and now I’m dead.

He brings a hand to my face, warm palm and stroking fingers. It’s like he’s searching me, and I don’t know if I want to be found.

“Da mi basia mille,” he whispers.

“Deinde centum,” I continue.

He presses his head to mine. “Dein mille altera.”

And then I finish, “Dein secunda centum.”

I lay there with him for a long time, and we don’t say anything else. There’s no need. We’re still for so long the roaring fire becomes a purr. We grab a blanket off of Ludsbury’s fancy couch, and I share this private moment, this joke with Finny of what we’ve just done in his study.

I crossed the river and here’s his hand. He’s got me. But I’ve been swept under anyway. Carried and drowning, my lungs fill and empty with him, and I think: _this is what it is._


	7. Chapter 7

I begin thinking about green things.

There’s very little of it this time of year. There’s the deep green of the pines - the evergreens - and I think if that kind of green had a personality, it would be like a wise old wizard. White beard, wooden staff, quiet intelligence. There’s the light green of celery on our dinner plates. That kind of green would be young and effervescent. Giddy and naive. I think about the olive trees in the Mediterranean - I haven’t actually been there, I’ve just seen illustrations - and the muted color of the olives and imagine that color to be the voice of reason and shy in unfamiliar company. I think about mossy ponds, the new leaves of Spring, mint, and sage.

I think about how from midnight to midnight, I see each and every one. It depends on the light or the shadows or what Finny is wearing. Gray or black makes his eyes look like the young and effervescent green. Blue or navy makes them old and wise. Hints of red or white turns them bashful and sensible. And if there’s no clothing, if it’s just him, it changes his eyes into something raw and ethereal; stripped down, uncovered, I can see him in many layers. In the lamplight, moonlight, sunlight, and everything in between, I make a study of dimensions and shadows. Reality becomes this.

_This is what it is._

One night we leave on the desk lamp. Not on purpose. I think we’re both so comfortable in our warm cocoon of blankets and body heat that it’s just pure laziness. I’m only completely comfortable if the door is locked and we’re quiet. He has to promise me that yes, Gene, I’ll be quiet.

He’s fascinated with my hands. He kisses each of my fingers from knuckle to tip, palm and wrist. He drags his bottom lip across the back of my right hand, and his eyes look as if he might be the bashful one in the corner at a social.

“You know what you remind me of?” I whisper to him.

“Mmm,” is all he manages, slipping my thumb between his lips. I don’t know how I can possibly get any harder.

“There was this pond, when I was little, just down the road. Althea and I used to skip rocks in it. Randy, too, when he got older.” I get a flash of putting a smooth stone in his little hands, teaching him how to throw it so it will skip. “We’d go down after dinner, if my mother was drinking and dad wasn’t home.” And there it is, that pond, appearing in my mind’s eye. I don’t know who actually owns it or how long it’s been there. It could be a thousand years old for all I know. The water was glassy-still on the surface and we’d come by and disrupt it. Like the water got a nap before we showed up. “It used to get really mossy in the summer. All around the bank. It looked like a robe or something. Like the pond was wearing this regal green robe.”

He pauses for a minute to smile. “I remind you of moss?”

“No. Well, sort of. It was the whole thing. It was bright and soft. I liked to touch it. It looked like your eyes.”

He shifts and pulls me closer to him until our lips are almost touching. “You know what you remind me of?”

“What?”

“The beach. Like if it was cloudy. Dark waters and a cloudy sky.” His hand begins a slow dive down my front to my growing ache. “When the clouds just hang over the water, really low, everything is gray and blue.”

He takes hold of me, and I gasp at his touch.

“And I think I can touch one of those clouds. They look so close.” He’s stroking me in a way that makes my eyelids flutter, and my mouth latches onto his neck. “And the waves are stirring, the clouds hang there, and I could wade out and just stand there. I could stare at it forever.”

I have to stifle a moan against his skin. He keeps talking, and I feel the rumble of his voice against my cheek.

“It’s not light, but it’s light, you know? Just enough. Just enough light so I can see across and watch the waves, and if I stand on my toes, if I reach high enough, my hands will get lost in the mist.”

I groan again. My hand wanders down to take hold of his hardened flesh. His breath quivers in my ear.

“Even if I was alone,” he pauses for a breath, “I’d feel you there with me. In all of it. I’d be surrounded.”

“Be quiet,” I mutter and kiss him fiercely. He returns it with a gasping groan that might shake down these walls. I make a vague note that someone might hear, and I swallow the sound in my throat.

I like to watch his face when we do this. I like to watch his eyes nearly dilate black, hushed breath through parted lips, a little twitch of his brow, nostrils flaring as we match each other’s pace. I think I can see myself sometimes, a pin-prick of a figure in the flat obsidian plate of one eye. Then they slam shut, teeth clenched, his hips buck into my hand, and a warmth spurts across my chest. I always hold out until then, satisfied twice, and his palm welcomes my release.

We lay like two useless lumps, boneless and blissed out, and I pant into his neck. God, what he can do to me. God, the way he makes me feel. On the inside, on the outside, I’m wearing the skin of my heart, and it’s so tender and wanting. I wrap my arms around him, completely engulf him in my embrace. This is really what it is.

He cleans us off with discarded clothing. He begins kissing my hands again with his eyes closed, lazily, softly.

I watch him for a minute or two. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to come home with me for Christmas?”

He opens his eyes a little. “I was going to ask if you could come home with me.”

“I don’t know. My parents are going to make a big deal out of Christmas this year since Tanner’s home.”

“I understand.” He folds me up in his arms, and I feel like a cloud. A cloud hanging low over choppy waters. “I don’t want to think about that, though. I’ll miss you. God, I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.” For a second, I think about sending Althea a telegram about a terrible snow storm backing up the trains. Yeah. And I’ll be delayed or maybe I just won’t make it at all. Yeah, that could work. Snowed in here with Finny….Jesus Lord, that would be amazing. I don’t care what would be waiting for me underneath the tree. Dad used to take us to Aunt Faye’s property and we’d chop one down. The tradition sort of ended when my mother got drunk and pushed Aunt Faye into the tree a few years ago. It fell into the fireplace and burnt to a crisp. I think they just buy one from a farm now and put it in the library, as far from any fires as possible.

“We should come back early,” Finny says, his eyes fully open, his gaze like a serene meadow. “So we can be alone.”

“I’ll try to. My parents probably won’t even notice I’m there.” I run my fingers over the dip of his bicep, curl them around his elbow. He rubs his lips against mine. “I could probably leave the day after Christmas, and the only person that would notice would be Althea.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he says before another kiss.

“I wish it wasn’t, but, you know…” I pause, thinking about how to phrase it. “I always knew, ever since I was little, I was just the back up. Kind of like insurance. And Randy…God, poor Randy. I’m pretty sure he’s going to end up taking care of my parents when they get old. Althea will get married off and leave.”

“Sounds medieval.”

“It kind of is. But maybe it’s good I’m not that important. It means I can do whatever I want.” I don’t tell him about the debutantes or remind him of our fate when school is over. Every time either of those things enter my thoughts, I’m gripped with panic until I fight them off. I don’t want to think about it. I just don’t.

He gently nudges me on my back and begins kissing down my chest. “Whatever you want, huh?”

“Mmhm….mmmm.” I tangle my fingers in his hair and my hand follows the path of his head.

He stops and looks up at me. My thumb catches on his lip. “What do you want right now?” His teeth nip at the pad of my finger.

“You.”

“Tomorrow?” He keeps kissing down. Oh, God, yes…down.

I close my eyes. “You.”

“The day after that?”

“ _You_.”

He hovers over my hip. My erection is straining just below his chin, and God, he’s so close. Just. Right. There. He bends his head down, licks his lips, and it almost touches me. “How about…like, in a year?”

I nod vigorously. Yes. Absolutely yes. “Yes. Please, Finny. Please touch me.”

His gaze lingers on me for just a second before he does what I beg. He watches me the whole time, and I can’t tear my eyes away from his. Quiet intelligence and voice of reason. It changes each time he moves his head, but I lose track. My head throws back and my eyes slam shut, and I think the last one might have been giddy and naive.

* * *

“How’s your leg?”

I startle at the sound of Leper’s voice. He takes a seat beside me in the library.

I look at him and blink a few times to get my thoughts straight. “It’s good. Better.”

I’ve been trying to work through some trigonometry, but my mind keeps wandering. Wandering right into Finny, getting lost, and deciding to stay. It isn’t just the times we spend alone. It isn’t just sex - admittedly that’s a lot of it, though - and it isn’t just the times we’re at meals talking with other guys, and I feel like he has something of mine. Something he borrowed, but I’m in no hurry to get back. It’s when we’re quiet.

It’s when I find that birthmark on his hip. It looks like an oval brown stain, like a fingerprint. I lay my head on his belly and place my thumb over it. Then my index finger, middle, ring. Thumb, index, middle, ring. And I just do that over and over. Minutes or hours pass in silence. And he’ll run a finger over the rim of my ear, over my shoulder, and we don’t say a thing. I feel like I know him then. I feel like I know everything he’s ever said and will ever say. And if the Japanese come flying over Devon dropping bombs, that’s how I would spend my last minutes on this earth.

Leper eyes my cane propped up against the table. “How long do you have to use it?”

“I’m not sure. A few more months.”

Leper nods at this and looks around. “Where’s Finny?”

“Taking a test. He should be done in about an hour. Why?”

Leper shrugs. “Just wondering.”

He says nothing more, so I turn back to my book. He doesn’t get up, though, so I look back over at him.

“I’m not trying to bother you or anything,” Leper says quietly. “I just walked by the tree the other day and thought of you. Finny was up there with you?”

“Yeah.”

He nods again and just looks at me, prompting me to say more.

I sigh. “It was me and him up there, getting ready to jump, and then I slipped and fell. There’s rubbed-off bark, so I slipped on it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so, if you ever climb it, be careful.”

His brows furrow with concern. “Should we put up a sign or something? So other guys watch out?”

I shrug. “If you want, I guess, but I doubt anyone will climb it with all the snow.”

“That’s true.” He stares at me for another second or two. “Well, I’m glad you’re doing better.” He stands up. “Just thought I’d say hi.”

“Thanks,” I give him a tight smile, and he walks off.

The story comes out easy. Leper isn’t the first person that’s asked. Brinker did, Chet did, even Mr. Ludsbury was curious. I keep it simple. Finny always tells it like an elaborate Greek tragedy, how he just turned around, and I was falling off, falling down, and there was nothing he could do. He describes everything down to the temperature and position of the sun. He doesn’t leave out a single detail. He just tells what he saw, what he felt, what he heard, and it’s honest. All the times he’s told his version of the events, I’ve corroborated and agreed so much that it’s become the truth.

Maybe I wasn’t going to do anything.

I mean, I fell. I blacked out. It’s possible I’m remembering it wrong. Isn’t it? I shake my head, shake out the possibilities, and look down at the page of right triangles. Those are the only problems I need to solve right now.

Before long, the chair beside me is pulled out and Finny is sitting down. I turn to him with a smile.

“How did it go?”

He makes a face. “I hate essays. I never know what to say.”

“ _You_ don’t know what to say?” I smile wider.

“Not when I have to. How’s the studying?”

“It’s fine.” I haven’t even gotten through a whole page. “I might have to stay up late. I heard this exam was brutal.”

“Yeah, but you’re brilliant. You’ll do great.” He gives me a playful nudge. I do a quick look-around to see if anyone is watching.

“Nobody’s looking, Gene.” There’s a weariness to his voice.

I close the book and suggest we go back to our room. I enjoy the feel of his gloved hand on my elbow. The snow is hard to walk through even if I had two good legs. It’s easier to make it look like Finny has to help me. I need his help. Look everybody, nothing weird going on here.

And is it weird? The books in our library don’t use that word. They use other words. A whole collection of vocabulary that conjures up images of shadows, medicines, and low gravely voices. It doesn’t feel that way when it’s happening. Those words are the last things on my mind when our clothes are removed, and I simply marvel that I’m the only one that gets to see him like this. My eyes can pinpoint where a fine patch of hair begins under his pants. Where the hollow of his throat is located under a scarf. Where I’ve kissed the soft-hard muscles of his abdomen. Where I lay my head and match his birthmark to my fingers.

It’s too cold to get naked right away, so we just take off the coats, scarves, and shoes. We lay with his back fitted to my chest like the most perfectly fitted puzzle piece known to man. I breathe him in and even though the grass is dead and buried under a mound of snow, he smells like a freshly mowed lawn, summery and promising.

“I wish we could do things,” he says wistfully.

I plant a kiss below his ear. “What do you mean?”

“Just…do stuff. Go out. I wish I could take you out.”

“We do go out. We go everywhere together.”

“Not like that, though.” He turns his head a little, and I see one emerald eye turned to the ceiling. “Like I want to…I don’t know, show you off.”

I smile into his neck.

He turns completely to face me. “I’d love to show you off. Take you places and show everyone you’re mine.”

He’s never really said it, and I’ve never really said it. There’s been no romantic talk of ownership or claims, like you might say about your best girl. Like how Richie Camden paraded around with Althea at her cotillion, calling her “his girl” and he’s such a dick. He really is. When we were kids, he used to pick up horse manure with his bare hands and throw them at cars. Seriously. _Bare hands_. In horse shit. Who does that? And even though he’s long outgrown it, I could still smell it on him while he danced with Althea. It bothered me in a brotherly way, in a get-your-horse-shit-hands-off-my-twin-sister way. She didn’t flinch once and kept on a polite smile through the whole thing. I’ll be damned if that dick becomes my brother-in-law.

So, no, he’s not better than Brinker, and it doesn’t matter. Althea’s choice will come down to our parent’s approval and a whole shitload of other Southern niceties, and I think she’s just as trapped as I am.

Because I am. I stare at Finny’s longing face, and it’s true. I don’t like to think about it, but is it possible that somewhere, at some point in the future, we could still be like this? Technically, I have no familial obligations to fulfill. Tanner gets all the glory and all the stuff. My parents will spoil and baby Randy to keep him close by and ensure he doesn’t toss them in a home. Althea becomes another man’s responsibility. So, would I really have to marry Caroline, or Mabel, or Polly Pingwell? What would my parents do if I didn’t? What would they do if I never returned to Montgomery, and Finny and I went somewhere together? We could hunt the moose and eat blubber. I wouldn’t even care, and I’ve kept my musings on a short leash thus far, but now they’re loose with possibilities, with disasters, with the unmovable and unshakable rules of birth order and proper society.

This is just how it is, and it’s always been this way. Uncle Alvin was the middle boy, too, and look what happened to him. But he managed to father four girls before getting murdered. He did what was expected, and he was still screwed up. He caved to the badness, and that can’t be me. It just can’t.

I cradle Finny’s cheek in my hand. “I’d love to show you off, too.”

He beams.

“So, let’s go out then. Before Christmas break.”

He gives me the biggest smile, and it feels like my heart is going to burst. “Okay. But, I mean, I know we can’t, like, hold hands or whatever. I just wanted to do something with you. Something that wasn’t related to school, you know?”

I stroke his face. “I know.” He strokes back, from the corner of my eye along my jaw. “Am I really yours?”

“Yes. I mean, if you want to be.”

And I do. I really, really do. This is not just a curiosity. Not at all. It wasn’t a fluke, or anything like that. It’s always been here, inside of me and inside of him, and I wasted a lot of time, a lot of days, before I found it. Before I gave it a name, before I cleared the path, polished off the muck, and saw this shining emerald that searches me, wants to find me, wants me to belong to him.

“I do,” I say. “I want to be yours. And I want you to be mine.”

He takes my hands and clasps them in his between us, close to our hearts, and mine might be getting too big for this room. For this whole damn world.

“I’ll be yours, Gene,” he whispers. “I’ll be yours for as long as you want me.”

4ever, I think. That’s what he wrote, and I now I can see it. It all unfolds before me so clearly. A tenderness blooms inside me, and I don’t know what to do with it. It doesn’t have a language and it doesn’t know time or birth order or proper society. It’s just a whisper, just a nudge inside my ribs, here to embrace, here to live.

When he kisses me it’s different, and I take that kiss, I take it and I let it inside me, let it flow through my head like a liquor. _This is what it is._ And I can condense that phrase into just a simple word, breaking off from sheet music and lines of poetry, from insatiable fires and still ponds.

And I know what I want.

And from the way he kisses me, I know he wants it, too.

* * *

There’s a Christmas Parade in town.

We go just two days before Christmas Eve. And we can’t hold hands, but he’s got his arm linked through mine to support me on my cane. It’s acceptable. It’s something. It’s enough.

For now.

We find a vendor selling popcorn and chestnuts. We find apple cider and see a few guys from school shuffling around. There’s hellos and nods, the smell of pines and cranberries. Music everywhere, kids on shoulders, and a horse-drawn carriage with Santa Claus laughing merrily with some elves.

The cold turns Finny’s cheeks pink and his lips are as red as the cranberries. I’m mindful of how close I stand to him, and I keep looking for somewhere to go. Like a building to hide behind for a just a quick kiss. But there’s people everywhere, and we’ll just have to wait. I don’t know if I like waiting so much anymore.

But we do it. We go out, and it doesn’t feel like we’re showing each other off. Probably not to anyone else, but I guess if I don’t think about that, it could be. It could be like: _he’s mine. You see this guy, right here? Mine. See the dimple and the eyes? All mine, suckers._ But it’s not like that. We’re just two Devon boys out for the parade, out for some fun, and that’s it. And that’s okay. That’s fine. I pity people around us, because I don’t think they get it. I don’t think they know what it is. But I do. They don’t know what it is to belong to Finny and have him belong to me. They’re here for Santa, they’re here for hard cider, and the bars open late.

I’m here because I fell off a tree, and when we get back I’ll fall into his arms. I literally might do that. The walk there and back is exhausting and there’s a sharp ache in my right leg by the time we get into our room. Finny gets me some aspirin and water, and we pull off wet boots and socks, lay back on my bed and take in the evening. Our evening out.

“That was fun.” He kisses the back of my hand.

“It was,” I agree, and my eyes shift to check the lock on the door.

“I locked it, don’t worry,” he says with that weariness, and I feel another jab under my knee. Aspirin hasn’t kicked in yet.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“And a lot of guys have gone home already. Brinker’s gone. Leper’s gone, I think.”

I stare up at the ceiling as the ache in my leg begins to dull. I have to leave tomorrow afternoon. He’s leaving later because it’s not as far for him. God, it’s so far. I wonder if there’s any way possible I could give Althea my snow storm story. I look over at him. Or leave Montgomery after the gifts are open and go to Boston. I’d do it. He did it for me, so I would do that for him.

Christmas is annoying. I used to like it as much as anybody, but it’s annoying me right now. Inconvenient. A disruption.

I watch the look on his face pinch with worry, and I know he’s thinking about it, too. We’ll be back, but I can hardly stand an hour without him. And it’s then, right then, that I begin to consider something. The thought of it is just as scary as it is exciting; as it is humbling and sacred.

“Hey,” I whisper to him.

He turns to me.

I move closer to him, nerves seizing my movements slightly. I perch myself on an elbow and run a finger along his lips. “I was thinking…,” I stop, my voice betraying my nervousness. “I was thinking that…since I won’t see you, and we’re kind of alone…I was thinking that…”

His gaze is steady and waiting.

“Why don’t we do it? Tonight.”

A tiny smile, then it fades. “Tonight? You really want to?”

“Yes.” My voice is steadier, sure. “I want _you_.”

He sits up on his elbow, his eyes level with mine. “Oh, Gene….” His breath quickens. “Gene…”

I know it’s probably going to hurt. We get something to lubricate, something to help, and I know it won’t hurt for long, or at least I don’t think so. I don’t really know what to expect, honestly, but I know I want him. _I want him._ I want him inside me. I want him to cover me, take me, and maybe he’ll take all the badness right out of me. Maybe he’ll see and he’ll know, but I want to share this with him. Now. It’s my fault we didn’t do this sooner, my fault we didn’t have nights like this more often, my fault I’m broken and bruised.

We’re slow with the undressing, with the lead up, and he gets me ready. Kisses in all the right places, gentle touches, and his eyes taking in every inch of me, and I’m already sweating when I wrap my legs around him, his hard length rubbing up against my own.

“Just tell me, okay,” he says tenderly, drawing my fingers into his mouth, and slowly pulling them out. “Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“Okay,” I nod.

It’s a burning intrusion at first. And he goes so slow. God, so incredibly slow. I keep my eyes closed and try not to tense up too much. I hear his breath hitch, my name on his lips, and when he’s all the way inside, the weight of him draped over me, he kisses my cheeks, my lips, bringing me here, reminding me to breathe. To share my breaths with him. And I do. I will share it all with him.

And then he hits something, rubbing a place, the friction, causing me to feel like I did that night in Ludsbury’s study. Scorching and consumed, the fire came out and whipped over my skin. He draws incoherent sounds out of me, his body pressing, his arms on my shoulders, hands clutching my face. I look up at him watching me, his eyes feverish and searching.

_Is this okay?_

_God. Yes. Finny. Please._

_Gene…_

_Make me come._

_Gene…_

_Finny…_

My hands slide over a thin sheen of sweat on his back, and I find a place on his neck where his pulse beats and thrums with the rhythm of his thrusts. The heat of my breaths pause there, and I think that I’m going to shatter. Die. He forms a cover over me, holding me together, even though I could break apart. I could break again, a bandaged up toy dropped on the ground.

_It was an accident._

But this…and this…and this…and ALL of this. I need him, and I want him, but all of this. All that’s happened. He can’t know. He can’t ever, ever know.

I come as his arms start to shake, as his eyes find mine, and for just that split second, I’m jumping into a pond, a river, cloaked in a regal green robe, and there are clouds everywhere. His hands got lost in the mist, they clench the covers as he fills me, and I’ll share him, and I’ll take this, and I’ll let him in.

We pull apart, sweaty and sticky, and I pull him back. _Cover me, cover me, cover me. God, please, just cover me. Don’t let it out. Don’t let it escape._ I don’t find my voice for several minutes, and when I do my voice shakes with a vulnerability, with a soul-bared-skin-of-my-heart timbre.

“Don’t ever leave me, Finny. Please. Don’t ever leave me.”

“I won’t, Gene. I won’t ever leave you.” His voice has the same quality to it, but it’s decisive. Firm. He’s not going anywhere. He belongs to me, and I belong to him.

It’s decided. Tonight just makes it formal, makes it real, and I feel bound to him. As if tonight I gave him more than just my body. And I could say it. I could say the words, they almost come spilling out of me, but they get stuck somewhere like clothing on a twig, tugging me back, making me think, really _think_ about what I’m doing.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

“You have me,” I say.

And I think that if I say more truths than lies, if I tell him the truest things of my heart, it will make up for any deceptions. They’ll cancel each other out, null and void, and rubbed-off bark becomes his strong arms. And soaring to the ground becomes his expression when he penetrates me. And all the secrets become nothing at all, just vapor, just dust, and he covers up the badness so no one will ever see.


	8. Chapter 8

I’ve always hated the phrase: _stolen my heart._

It implies that the speaker isn’t a willing participant. No one ever wills things to be stolen from them. Then it’s not stealing. It’s giving. So, every time I’ve heard it or read it, I’ve felt it was a dumb thing to say. Like how can you take someone’s heart from them against their will? It’s not romantic. It’s wrong. I would rather someone give their heart to me than having to resort to robbery. Doesn’t sound right, never has, and I want it to be clear that I still hate the phrase.

But now I get it.

I still hate it, but I get it.

Finny hasn’t stolen a thing from me, and that’s not just because he’d never steal anything. But it seems, without me even noticing, and within plain sight, Finny has indeed taken something from me. Not just physical things, or personal things, but things I never knew I would want to be taken. There’s nothing underhanded about it; he didn’t sneak in while I was away and stash it under his coat. He didn’t demand it and point a gun to my head. So, really, I left it unguarded and it strayed, walking right into his waiting arms.

So I guess if you leave something unattended, someone can steal it, but I still hate the phrase. I mean, it works, but I’m not budging.

“Look,” Althea stands over me with her new gloves. “Look at that lace. It must have been handmade.”

“They’re pretty,” I note and turn back to the new winter coat in my gift box.

I’m sitting in a pit of tissue paper and gift wrap with my right leg stretched out in front of me. Sometimes it’s difficult to bend my knee without some kind of muscle spasm. I look over at my mother, sipping ambrosia wine at nine in the morning and thinking she’s being discreet. Dad’s setting up Randy’s train set, and Randy’s digging through a corner of tissue paper like he’s making sure he got it all. Tanner had the most presents under the tree, which isn’t anything new, and he left everything where he opened it, and now he’s standing on the porch with a cigarette.

Forrester Family Christmas.

We’re the kind of people who would steal hearts, wrap them up in pretty paper, and give them to one another, expecting the recipient to fall on their knees in gratitude.

“I know why you’re so blue,” Althea says with a decisive nod.

“I’m not blue,” I say with little conviction.

Althea makes a space next to me and lays out her gloves, arranging them to look like hands imprinted on the rug saying _stop._ “You should call him up and wish him a Merry Christmas.” She says it quiet enough and casual enough so I don’t worry about being overheard.

And now that grandparents are coming and aunts and uncles are walking in the door, that will overshadow any sentiments I might share. No one is going to know or care, and it’s a relief and it’s simultaneously insulting. And I’m not going to explain to Althea how before I left Devon, I shared something with Finny I can’t ever take back. How I begged him to never leave me, then the very next day, less than twenty-four hours later, I was on a train bound for home, and then he was on a different train bound for home. I thought on the way here that wasn’t what I meant. My choice of words wasn’t ridiculous because there’s leaving and then there’s _leaving._ The kind of parting that unsettles, the kind that would happen later. And later is some vague notion of the future. It can be long or short, depending, and leaving isn’t like going home for Christmas because we have to, because that’s just what you do, because family and gifts allegedly matter more than what he and I shared.

And what we shared…

I haven’t thought about it since I got home, and that’s not because I regret it or hated it or anything like that. When we parted at the train station, I smelled like summer. There’s feet of snow everywhere, a covering of ice and chill, but I smelled like summer. I took off my gloves and kept smelling my hands, afraid I’d lose it, afraid I’d forget. He was covering me, like a blanket of snow, and I put my gloves back on, hoping I could make that scent last. He left himself in me, he left his essence on my skin, and his mark in my body. And I then I just tore myself away from him, because I have to, when we should be spending this time settling what transpired between us. Getting comfortable with it, transitioning, leaving a lovers’ bed warm and not cold. Then I started to worry that if I think about it outside of our room, outside of me and him, and bring it home with me, I’ve ruined it forever. It’s like the day you take your newborn out of the hospital, out of the watchful eyes of nurses and doctors, away from access to medicines and machinery and send them out into this world to inhale the mistakes of its elders, sleep in beds near liars and cheaters, grow to size in rooms with original wood floors, and that’s when you’ve made your first mistake.

“Do you think that Richie Camden could ever steal your heart?” I ask her with the same casual tone.

She folds up her gloves in tissue paper, and it looks like she didn’t hear me for a second.

“Or you could steal his?” I add.

“It must be serious, then,” she notes. “I reckon a phone call wouldn’t help much.”

I pull on the winter coat. It fits perfect. “I’m helpless.”

She watches Tanner saunter back into the house to hugs and gift boxes being shoved in his arms. He looks better now. More like a young man, a young Forrester man, on the precipice of the badness. He makes a show of giving Aunt Ethel’s gift back, shaking his head, like he’s so undeserving.

“Is he worth it, Gene?” Althea says. She wears a smile, but it isn’t twinkly.

“I think he should be asking that about me.”

She scoots a little closer. “All that matters is that you’re happy.”

“Does it?” I glance over at her. “Does that really matter at all? For me or for you?”

We’re interrupted by a cry from Randy. I look over to see him standing by his train set, fists balled, one train knocked off the track, the wheels still spinning.

“What’s the big idea?” Randy shouts at Tanner, who’s still got one foot lifted slightly as if he’s afraid to set it down.

“Now, Randy, he didn’t mean nothing. It was an accident.” Dad comes over and sets the train upright.

“He kicked my train!” Randy shouts.

Tanner sticks his hands in his pockets, lowers his foot, and looks calmly down at Randy.

“It was just an accident,” my father reiterates.

“He coulda broke it!” Randy exclaims.

“An _accident_!"

I almost cover my ears. Tanner bends down a little so he’s eye level with Randy. And Randy isn’t a shrimp. He’s tall for his age, and he’ll most likely be as tall as Tanner and our father. And right this second he’s not about to be intimidated. He doesn’t shrink away from Tanner in the slightest. He isn’t a thing like me.

“You know what we do to whiners in the Marines?” Tanner says forebodingly.

Randy doesn’t even blink.

“We tie ‘em up, let the Nazis shoot ‘em full of holes.”

“Oh, for heaven’s _sakes_.” My mother rolls her eyes as if she’s got such a burden to bear.

“Randy.” My father turns his mouth down in the way he did when he caught me looking up a lady’s skirt once. I wonder, just for the fun of it, how his mouth would look if he caught me looking down Finny’s pants. “Tell your big brother you’re sorry.”

“What for?” Randy hollers. “ _He_ kicked my train!”

“It was an accident,” my father continues, trying to sound reasonable. “Don’t you want people to forgive you when you make a mistake?”

Tanner doesn’t look like he’s made a mistake. He looks like he might squash Randy under his shoe like a cockroach.

Randy picks up the uprighted train car and makes for the front door.

“Randolph!” My mother abandons her ambrosia wine and follows him. “Randolph! You come back here! You’ll catch your death of cold!”

But Randy’s already out the door. Althea helps me up as we all go out to follow him and stop him from whatever he’s going to do - all of us but Tanner. Dad jogs behind Randy as Randy runs towards the road. Then Randy stops, lifts his brand-new-Christmas-train-car high in the air and hurls it onto the pavement. One side of it smashes and the wheels pop off.

Everyone halts in horror, my father’s face turning beet-red, and my mother teeters on the front steps.

Randy spins on his heels and marches back towards the house. “An _accident_!” He mocks dad, and goes inside, sits himself down by his train set, and begins playing with the other trains as if nothing ever happened.

Tanner’s standing by the back window, hands in his pockets, staring at the crepe myrtles like he might chop them to pieces with his very gaze.

* * *

By the afternoon, I’m restless.

After Cora fixed us all a late breakfast and some more family came by, it was nap time. All in all, it was a nice Christmas. I got some new clothes, shoes, and composition books. No one insulted me with a new cane. Grandma Forrester thinks Althea and I are still five, so we got matching Teddy bears - hers with a pink hat and mine with a blue bowtie. I folded up all my new clothes nice and neat, set the Teddy bear on top, limped into the kitchen, and sat down by the phone.

And I just sat.

And sat.

And waited.

I don’t know why I don’t just call him.

It’s not like he’d be upset.

But maybe he’s busy. Maybe his sister got a new bicycle for Christmas and he’s helping her ride it. I could see that. His eyes full of naive bashfulness, pushing Tabitha down a sidewalk, cheering her on. I’m sure he’s wrong about her. I’m sure her improvement wasn’t because he was gone. I’ve improved because of him. I am a living testament to that.

But he’s probably busy.

Why am I making this so difficult?

I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong now. It’s different after we’ve been apart. Almost as if the things we did and said at Devon occurred in a faraway land in a slice of time that was cut out and fitted between Thanksgiving and now in an attempt to adorn a sparsely painted canvas. Ludsbury’s study and the night after the parade feel boxed in. We woke up the morning after both times to find someone had rearranged us in our sleep. New furniture, new decor, and the old arrangements were pushed into a dark corner where a visitor’s eyes might miss. Nothing was as we’d left it. We were changed both times, irreversibly changed.

And he didn’t hurt me, but I feel a mild discomfort. Not all the time. Depends on how I’m sitting, and I like it. I like the soreness, because he put it there, he put himself inside me, I invited him, I let him, and it’s now, and I’m home on Christmas day, sitting by my phone, feeling the slight discomfort, feeling like I might mess this up if I call him. One wrong move. One wrong thing, and was it too much? What is he thinking about that now? Is that why he hasn’t called me? Maybe he regrets it. My stomach starts to sink and my leg starts to ache. Promises are only words. It doesn’t mean a thing unless you can do something; unless what you promised can be acted upon immediately.

As soon as I reach for the phone, Althea comes into the kitchen. She sits down at the table, wearing her new robe and smelling of the perfume Tanner brought her all the way from France.

“I think I’m losing my mind,” I say to her and wince.

She crosses one leg over the other, her expression drawn. That’s the thing about having a twin - it’s almost like looking in a mirror. Almost. She’s the female version of me. You could really see it when we were kids. There’s a picture of us on Christmas morning 1933, making the same face as we opened our gift from Grandma DuBois together. There we stood, side-by-side, our brows scrunched, bottom lips stuck out, as we held up two pair of ugly socks. Filthy rich Prohibition widow, and that’s what we got. Grandma DuBois bought Tanner a ticket for a private train car to the Grand Canyon that year. He took two of his buddies from prep school and didn’t so much as buy Grandma DuBois a souvenir. And let’s be honest: the Depression didn’t hardly touch this family. “Hard times” meant ugly socks for Althea and I, a “small” trip for Tanner, and maybe a little less milk at breakfast.

But Althea and I don’t look so much alike anymore. Sometimes, though, she wears an expression that I’ve worn. Sometimes I look at her face and I see my face, only in a girl version. We have the exact same eyes, smile, and chin, but I’m about three inches taller than her. She says it’s only two-and-a-half and went so far as to get a measuring tape once. It’s three, trust me, and that’s not because I reached an age where I became gravely concerned over inches.

“What are you going to do?” She asks me softly.

“I was going to call him up. Wish him a Merry Christmas.”

“No.” She turns to me with our wide-set Forrester eyes. Missouri Minerva-eyes. Arrow-in-the-left-eye-eyes. “What are you going to _do_?”

I swallow, the full weight of my predicament falling upon me bit by bit. In inches. “I don’t know. I guess when we graduate, maybe we’ll enlist together…or…”

It hangs there like tree ornaments. Dangling so precariously. I can see the tree out of the corner of my eye. Quiet intelligence. And I think about him looking at me that way. I think about him on top of me, crossing into this after with me, taking me bit by bit. Inch by inch, connecting himself to me. I think about the evening we plugged in the radio so I could listen to Bing Crosby with him. I shift in my seat.

Althea looks depressed. She looks like I just told her everything.

“I thought you were happy for me.” I feel difficult.

“You don’t look so happy yourself.”

“I am,” I insist. “I just…I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. The war could end.”

“Tanner’s going back in two days. We won’t see momma before noon or after five ever again.”

I can’t even be relieved or happy about that. Not that Tanner going back into the line of fire would be a happy thing. But having him here doesn’t help. He shook Finny’s hand for Christ’s sakes. What am I doing? Maybe Finny didn’t take anything from me. Maybe I just lost it.

“I don’t know what to do,” I tell her. “I haven’t thought about it, and I don’t want to. It’s not that big of a deal. It’ll fizzle out after school is over and maybe we’ll keep in touch. I don’t know.”

My right leg starts to ache like a warning. I need to be careful about the lies I say. One day I might begin to enjoy it.

“Fizzle out?” She raises a brow.

“I said, I don’t know! Okay? And you’re the one that said after the war everything will change. We all get a little bit curious every once in a while? That’s what _you_ said!”

“Why are you yelling at _me_?” She stands up.

“Because you keep asking me things. And I don’t want to answer anything because I don’t want to be asked because it’s none of your business!” I stand. I wobble a little as the pain in my leg increases.

“I told you to be sure. Be absolutely _sure_ about him. That’s what I said!”

Somewhere in me I have an answer for that. Rather than say it, however, I limp out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room.

Sureness isn’t what it is. And it followed me home after all, like a trail of breadcrumbs. The trail of your lover’s scent, the pathways, the clearing. I lay down on my bed and pull a blanket over me. I pretend it’s summertime and I’m laying on the green, green moss watching a blue, blue sky darken and clouds cover and it’s naive.

It’s so naive.

* * *

Great-Grandpa Forrester’s third Mississippi bride was Claudine Forrester - neè Terry.

We don’t have any photographs of her displayed since we’re not her direct descendants, but there’s one in a Montgomery history book. Claudine was sitting in our library, at the writing desk, posed like a learned Southern lady with a nineteen inch waist and a ruby brooch as big as a peach. She married Great-Grandpa Forrester about a month after Missouri Minerva’s biscuit incident, and she was about twenty years younger than him. I suppose she felt the way Katherine Parr did when she married Henry VIII.

Claudine’s branch of the Forrester line lives up in the Hunstville area. I met some of them once. They smile when they say hello and goodbye; eschew fancy things like china, lace gloves, and Prohibition bourbon; and every single one of them has died just like Claudine did: old, tired, and surrounded by loved ones. Claudine was 103 when she passed, laying in the room Tanner was so regally bestowed when he came out of the womb. She outlived her husband, two of her sons, one daughter, and a whole shitload of Civil War widows. Before she became a Forrester she was a nurse, a teacher, and spread the Gospel all up and down the panhandle. I like to think of her as a weed-killer. Whatever blight or fungus that took hold of our family tree and made us this way, she was somehow the antidote. Not one of her descendants has ever been caught with a prostitute, or gambling, or in a speakeasy, or stealing, or lying, or anything other than being decent human beings.

What we would have been like if only her blood ran through our veins rather than biscuit-choking-slave-beating Missouri. One wife removed. Had Great-Grandpa Forrester just met Claudine first, how things could have been, would have been, should have been.

I think about this late into the afternoon, and I realize, as it stands, as sure as the sun rises and sets, there is no hope for any of us. I can’t say enough truths to cover up the lies, and I can’t keep myself from doing what I’m doing.

What am I going to _do_?

I leave my bedroom and go back to the kitchen. The pain in my leg has eased up. I’m too young to feel this old. The statement becomes a repetition as I pick up the phone and dial the operator. By the time the call is connected, I feel it working. I’m too young, I’m too young, I’m too young. I’m too young, and I’m old enough.

The voice that answers is one hundred percent Bostonian and too old. “Hello?”

“Can I speak to Phineas, please?” My voice is one hundred percent Montgomerian and too young.

“Sure, just a sec. Who’s calling?”

“Gene.” I feel like I should add something, just in case Finny has forgotten who I am in just a matter of days.

But a few seconds later there’s a breath on the line, a breath I can recognize from a thousand miles away. “Gene?”

“Hey.” I hold the phone closer to my ear. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” and I hear the smile. God, that smile. I bet his eyes look bashful. I bet they’re contemplative. I bet there’s a light catching them at just the right angle, and I’d get lost in a pool of emeralds.

There’s a pause. We haven’t done this since. _Since._

I’m wondering if he sounds different. I’m wondering if the jump over the barrier, peeling back the layer, has transformed his vocal cords on the other side.

“I miss you.” It comes out of me so pitiful.

“I miss you, too.” It comes out of him so hushed.

In the silence that hangs, as I prop my right leg up on a chair, millions of words come through the line, back and forth. It makes me want to say, “I know, I know, me too,” just so we’re clear. It’s a big, wide world and it’s bearing the weight of battles. It’s bearing the weight of my heart right now, bleeding out, an ancient remedy for unbalanced humors and he could hold it all in his hands, catch me, and I feel like liquid all over again.

_Let me pour myself into you, Finny._

_I’ve got you, Gene._

_You do._

_I’ll never let you go._

_I’d fall off a million trees for you._

_And I’d catch you every single time._

_Can I just hold you?_

_Can I just feel you?_

_I want everyone to know you’re mine._

_I was inside you._

_Inside me._

_Gene…_

_Finny…_

“So,” he says in the empty space of a thousand miles. “Tell me. Tell me all about your Christmas.”

And I tell him. I tell him about Randy and Tanner. I tell him about the Teddy bears. I tell him my mother had so much ambrosia wine she’s snoring in her rooms. I tell her dad sits by the radio with bags under his eyes. That Tanner fills the ashtrays and Althea smells like a grove of flowering lilacs. I tell him bits and pieces, in no order in particular, and between the lines, the telephone line, we’re having a different conversation entirely. The undercurrent of the unspoken, and what am I going to _do_?

I’m going to love him.

I’m going to love him all my life, and it’s going to kill me.

I died and was reborn.

Wouldn’t old Claudine be proud.

* * *

Althea finds me laying under the Christmas tree.

There’s been no real structure to the day as family members trickle in and leave, momma getting drunker, and dad disappearing. I stare into the branches and the electric lights. Dad bought them just last year but some of the bulbs are out. I think electric green would be like a timid little creature that doesn’t know its own power. It would be fearsome and loathed until someone came along and saw its beauty and potential. Lonely and feared no more.

Althea sits beside me and picks up pine needles off the floor. “You still mad at me?”

“I wasn’t mad.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

I sit up and the motion is like turning on a faucet. Laying down kept the tears in but sitting up they drip like rainwater on a window.

“Gene?”

I wipe them away. “I love him.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

A few more tears and neither of us move. I feel like a timid little creature in the woods, frozen and stiff in the lurking breath of a predator.

“Does he love you?” She whispers.

“I want him to.”

And that’s not true. If he loves me back, our fate is sealed. Stamped, sealed, and irrevocable. And I’m just a Forrester after all. Not a Claudine-infused Forrester with remedies and the ship set right. I’m a Forrester, and I’m not worth it.

She moves closer to me, a hand on my dysfunctional knee, her attempt at comfort.

“He’s so good, you know,” my voice quakes and I wipe away another tear. “He’s so good. I used to hate it so much. He would do things at school, stupid things, and just talk his way out of it. I can’t believe it sometimes. I can’t believe someone as good as him wants me and cares about me. He shouldn’t. I don’t know what to do, and I’m scared if he loves me back, we won’t be able to handle it. Everything we’ll face, the world of trouble coming our way, and it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m trapped. You’re trapped. What’s the point in wanting after things you can’t ever have?”

Once I’ve said it all, I feel deflated. Althea leans her head on my shoulder.

And so we consider.

Twin ESP.

It’s true. I’m right. We’re trapped. She knows it, I know it, momma and dad know it, and even Tanner’s entitled ass knows it. I wasn’t born to be a revolutionary. I’m not brave enough to shake up proper society. I’m a coward and that’s a fact. It was a coward that stood on the tree that day, ready to knock his imaginary competitor to the ground, and there’s not a book on earth to tell you what to do when you’ve found yourself falling in love with him.

The only sounds are my sniffling, Randy’s exclamations in the parlor over the radio program, and Finny’s voice in my head, _I’ve got you, I’ve got you_ , and Dear Lord he does. He has so much of me, and I need him. I need his hands, his eyes, every hair on his head. I need his voice, I need him unbroken and perfectly imperfect 4ever. And my great need would be his undoing. I will hurt him after all. In the worst way, in the way you can’t heal with casts and canes. God, I am nothing but poison.

“The way I see it,” Althea begins. “You and I only have two choices: do what we want or do as we’re told.”

“That’s the same choice everyone has.”

“Not really.”

“Okay.”

“And he should love you, Gene. You’re a good man.”

“I’m not a man.”

“Close enough.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I think if you love someone you should fight for them.” She twirls one of her rag curls. “I think you’d want to divide the earth to be with them.”

“I’d fight.”

“Then this might be your fight.”

“Don’t you know what I have to do?” I look at her. “It’s worse for me. Graduate. Army. Or Marines or whatever. Then marry one of your dumb friends.” I tick each point off on my fingers. “Babies. Forrester this and Forrester that. Make my branch of the family tree as decent and proper as possible. Make a living while Tanner takes our house and everything in it. Die too young and probably drunk. _That’s_ what I have to do.”

She bristles, and I think this will turn into an argument about who has it worse. And, honestly, with the exception of national service, that will be her story, too. Does God write it all out before we’re born? Does He have a scroll and a feathery pen? Does He check it to see if you’re right on track and when you stray, when you find His plan isn’t what you want, does He give you a stroke in a speakeasy?

She unbristles and slumps. “It all sounds so mediocre when you say it. I wonder what dreams are really made of?”

“Not this.”

“No.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Me either.” She picks up some more pine needles. “And Richie Camden couldn’t steal my heart if I left it out overnight. I could put it in his hands, and he’d just drop it.”

“He’s a dick.”

She shrugs. “He’s okay.”

“No he’s not.”

“I’ve thought about it. I reckon I could stand him enough to be his wife. It’s all for show anyway. I’d be okay if he had a mistress or two.” She hugs her knees to her chest. She looks at me with such directness. “And so would I.”

“You’d have a man on the side?”

“Not a man.” She sits up straighter.

It takes me a minute. And when I get it I want to hug her. “Oh my God.”

She nods and picks at some lint on her nightgown. I feel like I’m just seeing her for the first time and everything about her, about us, makes perfect sense. Perfectly imperfect.

“So…,” I let it hang.

“So.” She lets it fall.

“So…Caroline?”

“No. Her name’s Bridget. You don’t know her.”

“You love her?”

“Maybe. And Richie’s such a clown, he wouldn’t know if I kissed her right in front him.” She pauses and nibbles on a nail, a nervous gesture I thought finishing school finished right out of her. “And maybe, _maybe_ , you could do that, too.”

I stare at her.

“We have to get what we want one way or another, Gene. Play the game, but don’t tell anyone your rules.” She stares back, and I think we’re like mirrors. “And if you’re wondering, I’ve always known. I figured you did, too. It’s not like we ever talked.”

“We should.” I smile.

“We should.” She smiles back.

I hug her. Althea just pushed me out of the way, and I had no choice but to come out last. For the first time in my life, I love her for it. I love her for her truth.

“Thank you,” I whisper to her.

“Love him all you want,” she says. “And let him love you back. You’re worth it and so is he.”

“I will,” I promise her. I hug her tighter. “I will.”

Hope is electric green and I see its potential and its beauty; its lonely and feared no more.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s chilly the day after Christmas.

I bundle up and go outside and limp among the crepe myrtles. All the leaves are gone. I know the exact tree Finny kissed me under and I go stand against it. Hope is electric green. It’s the color of my insides. Red and pink are not the colors of love and romance. It’s green - all the green - forest, mint, chartreuse, and juniper. I lean against the trunk and send a silent thought to him, willing him to know that I’m thinking of him right this very second.

I should be spinning around in circles, flying high on clouds, wandering around like some sap, all dreamy-eyed and smiling. I feel more like a scientist making an observation; examining a sample under a microscope, taking notes, a new discovery. I’ve found nothing surprising. And it doesn’t matter when, and it doesn’t matter how, it just matters that I know.

_Stolen my heart._

I get it.

I hate it, but I get it.

I begin to let myself indulge in the memory of that kiss under the tree when I hear a sound near me. I turn and expect to see Randy having a fit. Instead, I see Tanner, crouched by one of the trees, cigarette in one hand, and the other covering his face. I limp a little ways towards him and clear my throat.

He removes his hand, head swiveling sharply. His face is red, eyes puffy. I lower my gaze and pretend I don’t notice.

“What are you doin’ out here?” The hand with the cigarette has a tremor to it.

I could ask him the very same thing, but I say nothing.

“You don’t sneak up on a Marine,” he says, standing up, and I hear his knees crack. “Good thing for you I ain’t armed.”

“You’d really shoot me?” I mumble.

“Now, don’t go gettin’ your feelings all hurt. It’s survival.” He wipes his nose on his arm. “It’s all about survival out there.” He takes a drag and the tremor gets worse.

I just stand there. I feel like I can’t walk off unless I’m dismissed.

He’s underneath one of the older trees, the branches fanned out wide, and in the summer it looks like a lady in a green cape, arms out-stretched. That kind of green is mystical and miraculous, holding you in an earthy embrace, the comfort of a high forest canopy.

Tanner smokes his cigarette down to a nub and takes out another. He lights it, and holds the pack out to me. I shake my head and he smirks. “Don’t pretend you ain’t ever tried.”

I don’t want to, but I’ll do what he wants. I’ll think what he wants. It’s some kind of mind-control. I don’t know where or how he learned it, and I don’t know why it skipped right over me.

I take a cigarette. He hands me the lighter. I stifle a gag, and I don’t inhale.

“I’m thinkin’,” he sniffs and looks around at the trees, “that this needs to go.”

“Which one?”

“All of ‘em.”

“Over dad’s dead body.”

He laughs, and it strikes me how rare that is. Tanner isn’t a laugher. He’s a grinner. He’s not the type to guffaw at a good joke or even giggle at something silly. He just grins that Forrester grin that I, thankfully, do not share with him. Althea and I smile like a DuBois: wide, sweet, and with just a hint of mischief.

Tanner sticks his chin out. “Dad agrees with me. Trees bring bugs. Bugs bring birds. Birds bring a bunch of bird shit.” He reaches his long arm up to a branch and shakes it. “It ain’t worth it. All the upkeep. I ain’t gonna have it.”

I try to imagine this yard without all the trees in it. And then I imagine Great-Grandpa Forrester’s and Great Aunt Eunice’s ghosts cursing Tanner all the way to hell.

I’d be okay with that.

“I think they’re nice. They provide shade and keep the house cool when it’s hot.” I take a puff and make the mistake of inhaling. I try to make my cough sound like a throat-clear.

He grins. “Listen at you. Sounding all intellectual from that fancy school.” He turns to me and looks me over like it’s an inspection. “I bet they thought you were some kind of hillbilly.”

I shrug.

“I don’t know why momma and dad sent you to get educated by a bunch of Yanks.”

Because I’m not you, Tanner. Because I’m second best, economy class, and why on earth would momma and dad want to flaunt me to the Bowlings or the Uptons? I’m not you, Tanner. This is your castle and kingdom and we both know it.

“It’s not so bad,” I say. The cigarette has an inch of ash on it. I flick it off like I know what I’m doing.

He stares at me in the way he used to when I was doing something on my own. First time I rode a bike. First time I tried to play baseball. First time I had to recite John 3:16 in Sunday School. It’s like he was waiting. Waiting on a mistake, waiting on a flaw to come out and prove he was right about me all along.

I make a show of finishing my cigarette and stamping it out. “It’s too bad you can’t stay for New Year’s. It was awful nice of them to give you such a long leave.”

His face darkens.

I want to go back inside now. This is the most we’ve said to one another in years. I always accepted defeat. He won, he’s right, he gets it all. There’s no use in putting up a fight. There’s no use in insisting it wasn’t an accident and smashing a toy in the street.

His eyes seem to lose focus and look past me for a second. “I gotta go back to all this shit tomorrow. It’s all a bunch of horse shit.” He shakes his head and his eyes redden. “You don’t know what it’s like out there. All safe at home, in your Yank school, and you don’t know, but you will.”

“I might join the Navy,” I say evenly.

He snorts. “Navy? Walkin’ around like an old codger on some deck with that cane? You crazy? You’re about as useful as a clam on a cloud, I tell you what.”

I stand still. I say nothing.

This is why we don’t talk. This is exactly why. The only commonality between us is that we came from the same two people. We don’t even look like brothers. He’s tall and broad, his hair so much darker than mine it’s almost black. The only physical trait we share is our Forrester eyes, all blue-gray and far too expressive. Only momma and Randy have the DuBois eyes, all brown-sugar and never satisfied.

I turn to go inside, done with him, done with his bullshit, and he grabs me. He tugs at my arm and pulls me to him. My right leg buckles, and I almost fall.

“I don’t wanna go back.” His eyes are a fierce red, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I don’t wanna go.”

I turn my face away from him, embarrassed.

“They sent me home because some dumb sons of bitches walked over a mine. Dumb sons of bitches, and it ain’t my fault. They were coming upon us, it was a shit storm, and I ordered the retreat.” I feel flecks of spit on my face. “And those idiot fucks weren’t paying no mind. Ain’t none of ‘em paid no mind!”

I keep staring off to the side at the biggest tree. Possibly the very first one Great-Grandpa Forrester planted when he brought home his first Mississippi bride, Sallie Jane. She was a Carlyle and only four foot ten. Her tiny frame bore eleven children and only six survived infancy.

“They’re gonna send me to the Netherlands.” His grip tightens. “They ain’t gonna let me forget it!”

Sallie Jane liked to go to soothsayers, and she wrote a journal entry about one predicting she would die in a wagon accident. She kept all her surviving children in the house for, some say, almost ten years for fear they’d see her die. Some of the rumors got out of hand. A Bowling neighbor swore he saw some of the kids chained up in the cellar. A Farrington said she saw one child run from the house in broad daylight, and Sallie Jane knocked him upside the head and dragged him back.

“I don’t wanna go back, Gene, you hear me?” He shakes me. “Look at me!”

Great-Grandpa Forrester put an end to the rumors one Sunday when he brought his entire brood to service. Sallie Jane was down with typhoid fever two days later and was dead by the end of the week. One of my uncles said Great-Grandpa Forrester smashed all the wagon wheels he could find and never went to church again.

I turn my face to Tanner’s, and he’s ugly in his distress. Just plain ugly. “Let me go.”

He looks wounded for a second, blue-gray eyes flickering into ice, and then he gets real close, menacing. “You tell anybody about this, I’ll shove that cane so far down your throat they’ll have to cut you open! You understand me?”

I don’t want to cry. The worst thing I could do right now is start to cry. I swallow it down, I let it simmer for a second, and it bubbles up as rage. A rolling boil, years and years of it, just standing around, saying nothing, and I’m not little Eugene anymore.

“Get off me! God damn you, get off me!” I pull my arm away from him, and it takes some effort before I’m free. “I saw you! I saw you at your track meet when you were seventeen. You tripped that guy, made him fall down, so you’d win. I saw! I saw it all, and I didn’t say nothing!”

His fists clench.

“And you know what? I’m no better than you. I’m just like you! You know how I broke my leg? I was going to hurt someone. Just like you! I was going to shake him off a tree and make him fall! I was going to hurt him!”

His shoulders brace. His face so red I think blood might come out of his pores.

“But I’m the one that fell, because that’s what happens. You don’t get away with it! You don’t get to just hurt people and get away clean!”

He barrels towards me, and I brace myself for a punch.

But he stops short, his breath heavy, his eyes narrowed to slits. “You ain’t nothing like me! I would’ve knocked that kid into next year, and I don’t fall off trees like some pansy ass!” He laughs harshly. “You ain’t like me at all! You never will be, and you’ll be hating it all your life. You’ll be hating me and wanting what I get all your life and there ain’t nothing you can do!”

“You think I want all this?”

“You wanna be everything I am, Gene. And you’ve been praying I die out there ever since I left!”

I can almost hear a child running away from our house. A little boy just running and running away.

“I hope you come back in one piece,” I say. “I hope you cut down all the trees, you live in this house, and you take it all, because I don’t want none of it!”

If his gaze were knives, I’d be bleeding out. “You’ll come crawling back home one day, wait and see, just begging me for a slice. And so help me God, I’ll say I never knew you.”

He turns away and marches back into the house. I stand still until I hear the door slam, and then I fall back against the tree, sink down to the ground, a pain shooting through my leg, and my hands shaking something awful.

A little boy just running and running away. Then he was knocked upside the head and dragged right back.

* * *

I stay in my room the rest of the day.

Althea knocks a couple of times, but I tell her to go away. I stay. I stay all through the night. And all the next morning, until momma comes to the door and demands I say goodbye to my mighty Marine brother.

I compromise. I come out and sit at the top of the steps and watch it all unfold. Momma’s crying, dad’s slap on the back, Randy’s salute - which is apparently his thing now - and Althea’s sincere hug. Tanner looks up at me and gives me a nod. I nod back.

Then he’s gone.

Just gone.

And I’ve got a pain in my leg, and a wall crumbling down inside me, and he’ll live here and die here and haunt his sons for eternity.

That won’t be me.

Randy comes into the parlor while I lay underneath ugly Uncle Asher. He moved his train set into the corner, and he begins taking it apart to move it up to his room. My eyes have been on the high Georgian ceiling for about an hour. I wonder what it would be like for that ceiling to be the last thing you see before you die. I wonder how many eyes were turned up just like mine, watching and waiting, until there was nothing at all. I wonder if this will be the last thing Tanner sees.

That won’t be me.

I won’t be among the deaths in this house. I swear to God I won’t.

I feel a cushion depress by my feet and look down to see Randy sitting there.

“Is Tanner gonna die?” He says it so matter-of-fact.

“What?”

“Is he gonna die? In the war?”

“No.” I lean my head back. “He won’t ever die.”

“Okay.” Randy fiddles with one of his trains. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“I know.”

“But I still wouldn’t want him to die.”

“I know.”

Now that he’s gotten that off his chest, he gets an armload of train tracks, and takes them up the stairs. I get up and gather some train cars in one arm. I should do better by him, I think. Tanner was practically a myth by the time Randy was old enough to remember anything. I feel a responsibility. I feel like I should be the big brother I never had and will never know.

And now he’s just gone, and I’m pretty sure that we’ll never speak again.

And I told him. I told him the truth, and isn’t it something that he’s the only person upon this earth that knows? It’s an admission he can take with him into battle. It’s a confession he can muse over when we’re old men and maybe his wife and kids are out of the house for once, and he can sit in the parlor, stare out at his treeless backyard and think I was just like him.

And maybe at that very second, somewhere far from here, in the Yukon, on a tropical beach, under a smattering of stars, I’ll be leaning my head on Finny’s shoulder, and I’ll be telling him the truth. Because time is the only thing that makes it better. Time is the only thing that washes your sins away and makes you new again.

I will die and be reborn a million times, I’m sure of it.

I help Randy get his train set together in his room. He chatters about this and that the whole time and doesn’t seem surprised that I’m spending time with him. I hope he never tries to hurt anyone. If there’s anything I can do to save this Forrester boy, I’ll do it. Someone has to rise from the ashes. Tanner will suffocate in them, and I’ll be blown away; away from here, away from this house, and Randy has to come out of it all a better man than both of us. He’s still young, still a child, and there’s hope for him yet.

I wish I was ten years old again and knew nothing about love or proper society.

About an hour before dinner I go into the kitchen. Cora is shredding some lettuce and humming and muttering to the ham in the stove.

“I need to use the phone,” I say to her.

“All right then.” She keeps shredding.

“It’s, um…private.”

She looks over at me, purses her lips. “Better make it fast. You know how your momma gets when I’m even a minute late.”

“I know. I will. Sorry.”

She shuffles out of the kitchen with a sigh. I could use the one upstairs, but it’s not really accessible with momma in her rooms and now that Tanner’s gone, she’ll never leave them again. It’s really all her fault I put Cora behind.

I want to sob as soon as I hear his voice, as soon as he says my name, but I keep myself together.

“Hey, Gene. I was just going to call you.”

“I guess I beat you to it.”

“It’s so good to hear your voice.” He says it all hushed, and I’m guessing he’s not alone.

“Yours too.” I stretch the cord as far as it will go and sit in the corner. “I miss you so much.”

“Me too.”

There’s that silence again. The one where we talk without sound. I can feel everything. I know everything he feels and what he wants, and, God, I want it, too. I do. And would he even be willing to be my secret? While I’m playing the game, will he be my one rule? I feel like if I keep worrying over the future, I’ll forget about these moments now. I won’t give them my full attention, and it needs to be here. It needs to be with him, always with him, and I’ve got to manage it somehow.

“Tell me something funny,” I say. “Or good.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

“Well…I had a dream about you the other night.”

“You did?” I smile.

“I did.” I can tell he’s smiling, too.

“What happened?”

“It was sort of silly. We were climbing the tree and you had whiskers. Like a cat.”

I laugh. “That’s weird.”

“It was, it was. I don’t know why. I don’t even have a cat. Anyway, you took my hand and said ‘let’s jump together’ and I said, ‘okay’ and so we did. It was fun. You were smiling, and I loved it. I love seeing you smile.”

A tender warmth spreads through me. It’s the first time he’s used the word “love” in relation to me. It’s close. It means something. I know what Althea said, I know what I promised her, but it’s a scary thing. I don’t want to lead him down a path only to abandon him later. And what a winding, rocky, muddy path it’s going to be. He’s too good for it, but I don’t know what else to do.

I’m helpless. Hopeless.

“Finny,” I take a breath or two. “Finny, I….”

_Not here, not now, idiot. Not here. And not now._ It’s like he opened up the door just a crack, inviting, letting me know it’s okay, but it shouldn’t be over the phone. It should be face-to-face, but it’s like a million years until I’ll see him again. Okay, a hundred. Okay, just a few days. We’ll be back before anyone else. We’ll be alone. I can stand before him. I can turn into liquid right before his very eyes.

My heart feels like an electric green bulb, swelling with light, charged and ready.

_Let him love you back._

_I will._

And I should. Why is it that the only love that doesn’t scare me is my own?

“Gene? You there?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I was just going to say…I can’t wait to see you.”

“I can’t wait to see you either.” He pauses. There’s a shuffle sound, and his voice lowers to a light whisper. “So, uh…were you okay? After?”

I feel myself blush. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

“I was fine. I promise.”

His breath gets heavy. “I think about it all the time.”

“Me too.” I press my lips to the receiver as if I could kiss him through it. “It was…”

“It was…”

“…like it was new and I was scared, but…”

“…Oh, God, Gene…you have no idea…”

“…and I don’t regret anything…nothing…”

“…and I wish I was with you…right now…”

“…right now…”

“…right here…”

“…Oh, God, Finny…”

“…Oh, God, Gene…”

This is the absolute worst place and worst time to get aroused. It’s his breath, his voice, the reminder of what we shared, and this house could burn down around me, everyone could lose their minds and start doing cartwheels, and I still wouldn’t let go of this damn phone.

And this is why, and this is what it is. _This._

“I didn’t know,” Finny says. “I was afraid you were upset or I hurt you. I thought maybe it was too much, and you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

“No, no, no. Not at all. It wasn’t. Home’s been kind of rough, and I just…I wanted you. I want you all the time. I want you right now.”

His breathing is thick. I bet he’s just as hard as me. Jesus Lord, what I would do to him if he were here. I need to calm down. I can’t have Cora coming in here and finding me like this.

“I don’t ever want to be apart from you this long ever again,” he says. “I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it.”

“Me either.”

“We won’t be. I promise. I’ll never leave you. You’d have to kill me first.”

There’s a tone of hilarity in that last part. Like, _I’ll let you have my cake, when you kill me first, HAHAHA!_ Isn’t it funny? Isn’t it funny to joke about killing someone over some cake? _HAHA!_ But my stomach sinks and so does my dick.

It all could have gone very, very wrong that day. A broken neck instead of a busted up limb. Me or him. The difference is that I would’ve deserved it, got what was coming to me, and Tanner knows and he’s in the Netherlands being punished for blowing up his own men.

I wonder if any of them said: _hey sarge, you’d have to kill me first! HAHA!_

“You don’t have to say it like that,” I whisper.

“I can’t stand this. It shouldn’t be like this.”

“Just a few more days. Then -”

“Never again. Never, ever again.”

“How would we do that, Finny? With the war?”

“We’ll talk about it. We’ll figure it out.”

He has all the solutions. Even though he’s not here to look at me, I feel better. “I hope so.”

“I’m never going to want anyone else as much as I want you.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“That makes two of us.” I hear Cora just outside the kitchen tapping her foot. “I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“I can call you.”

“No, it’s expensive. I’ll call.”

“Okay. Bye, Gene. I -”

“I -”

It happens at the same time and we stop at the same time.

I wait. He waits.

Then we hang up.

* * *

As New Year’s Eve approaches, I start to lose steam.

In another life, I hated January. Long and cold and nothing special. Devon turns into the Arctic, and the weather at home develops split personalities. One day it’s Spring-like and the next day Old Man Winter wants his season back. You never know if you’ll find buds attempting to bloom or frost in the mornings. And the rain. God, the rain. Not snow, just rain. It’s such a contrast, and a Southern boy like me wasn’t built for New England winters. I’ll have to adjust all over again.

As January approaches like a knight on a horse, I’m waiting with baited breath. And now I love January. I love how it begins the New Year and ends my wasted time in this house.

Momma and dad aren’t interested. I guess they’ve lived through enough New Year’s Eves that it’s lost its magic. Althea, Randy, and I make a point of being by the radio at ten o’clock. There used to be a party at Uncle Alvin’s. There was family and a bunch of men no one knew. The grandparents were dead asleep by nine, the adults sloppy drunk by ten, and the only lucid ones at midnight were the kids.

“I’ll miss you when you go.” Althea primps like this is an actual party.

“I’ll miss you, too.” I watch Randy by the window. He thinks the moon might explode.

“It’s always so bittersweet, isn’t it? One year gone and another one coming. I hope our boys can come home to stay this year.”

“You’re just tired of all the letters.”

“I’m tired of all the rationing.”

“You really want Tanner to come home to stay?”

She sits beside me in her lady-like way, and I don’t know if I prefer this Althea or the old Althea. The one that bit her nails, wrestled me to the ground, and liked to wear my shoes. We each had a spirit in us, fresh and new, uncomplicated by this world, and then we were set on tracks, pulled along, and it reminds me of that scene in _The Wizard of Oz._ Wash and Brush Up. Shiny tin and fresh straw.

Emerald City. I want to laugh. The _Emerald_ City. Of course.

“I hope that when Tanner comes home to stay,” she says. “He’ll find himself a nice girl.”

“And you will, too.” I don’t say it too loud, but she pinches me anyway. It just makes me laugh. She does, too. I keep my voice low. “How often do you see her?”

“Not as much as I’d like.”

“How much is that?”

“All the time.”

“You just don’t seem like it,” I observe. “You just don’t seem like how I feel.”

“How should I seem?”

“I don’t know. Mopey. All starry-eyed and mopey.” I think about Brinker again, and I’d give him a shit-eating grin everyday for the rest of his life if he married Althea. Just let him. He can go right ahead. She’d play him like a fiddle, and I’d be so proud of her.

“I was, but you weren’t here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault momma and daddy sent you away.”

“It probably is in some ways.”

And it strikes me that if Althea has to play someone, then I’d have to do it, too. I’d have to grit my teeth and get into bed with a girl like Polly Pingwell. Why do I have to do that at all? Momma and dad wouldn’t be able to knock me upside the head and drag me back if they didn’t know where I was.

But blood is indeed thicker than water. If I never came back and did my Forrester duties, I’d never see Althea or Randy again. That would hurt. That would leave too many empty spaces that I’m not sure Finny would ever be able to fill. And what about what his family expects out of him? He’s the one and only boy. And if Tabitha has a disability, would he be responsible for her when his parents passed away?

I’m getting ahead of myself again. It’s like a lightening rod, and my mind is a time machine. He said we’ll figure it out, and by God, I hope we do. I don’t think I could live without him. I really don’t. I thought the phone might leave a burn on my face from the heat between us.

“Stop worrying,” Althea says. “I know that face.”

“I have to. I don’t want to be unprepared.”

“It’s not like an exam.”

“It is, though. Except you never know when it’s over and all the right answers are secrets.”

“That’s a good way to put it.” She kicks off her slippers and sits back on the sofa. “Whatever you do, Gene, I hope we’re never too far apart.”

“Nine months. All crammed up together.” I take her hand.

“Together.” She squeezes mine.

By the time “Auld Lange Syne” begins playing, Althea’s dozing on my shoulder, Randy’s all flat as a pancake asleep on the floor, momma’s cussing a slurring storm upstairs, dad’s telling her to shut up, and there’s a warm tingling in my right knee.

I get up slowly, place Althea across the sofa, and limp into the kitchen. I hold my breath. The phone rings once and I snatch it up. “Happy New Year, Finny.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“I just did.”

“Happy New Year to you, too, Gene."

“I have something I have to tell you.” The warm tingle shoots down my calf to my foot.

“What is it?”

“Later. When I see you.”

“Okay. I have something to tell you, too.”

“All right. I’ll see you soon. Real soon.”

“I can’t wait.”

We stay on the phone, the silence between us heavy and full, just waiting and waiting, and that’s how I spend the first few minutes of 1943. That’s when I decide I’m not like Missouri Minerva, or Sallie Jane, or Uncle Alvin, or Arrow-Eye Tobias. I have to tell him the truth. All the truth and nothing but the truth. Put my hand on the Bible and swear my testimony. He has to know how I felt the day I fell and how I feel now. It’s the right thing to do. Tanner’s right again and again: I’m nothing like him.

I’m a weed-killer.


	10. Chapter 10

I sleep through most of the train ride.

There’s a few delays, and I take it in stride. I’m patient on the outside. The world goes on and on, and nobody cares there’s a young man on this train itching to get back to school.

And not to study.

Not books anyway.

I left home with a slap on the back from dad, a slurring lecture and side-hug from momma, and leftovers from Cora for the ride. I stood on the front porch with Althea and Randy for a bit. There were actual snow flurries and no one was wearing a coat but me.

Randy hugged me. I looked him right in his DuBois eyes and said, “Don’t ever cause any accidents.”

“I won’t.”

“You don’t have to be like him.”

“I know.”

“You can write me, if you want.”

“About what?”

“Anything you want, pal. Anything.” I stop myself from ruffling his hair.

He stares at my leg. “Are you gonna die?”

“Never.” I smile.

He smiles back.

Althea hugs me. “I guess I’ll see you at your graduation.”

“I guess you will.” I whisper in her ear, “You should bring her. I’d like to meet her.”

“I’ll see.” She ducks her head all shy, and now I can can see it.

And that was that. Off I went and off I go. It’s almost like starting over, and I suppose we all get to each time the clock strikes on December 31st. Let’s just start all over again and see if we can get it right.

I’ve never been one to make resolutions. And the things I wanted this time last year are distant and buried. But it’s good I can leave things behind. It’s good I can leave 1942 where it is, where it was, where it will stay, never coming again, and time rolls forward like a train. I mean, there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it.

Unless Tanner kicks it over.

* * *

The sun is weakening in its descent when I get to Devon.

It would be nice to have help with my luggage, but I can manage better than I used to. There’s an eerie sort of quiet. Shades are drawn. No shouts or rowdy laughter. No footprints in the snow. It’s like the rapture happened and I was left behind. I pause outside our dorm and listen.

Stranded.

That’s what it’s like.

Stranded with Finny. Oh, the glorious days ahead. I ignore the sourness churning in my gut, the reminder of my intentions. We won’t be able to get away from each other. If he’s angry with me, if he’s hurt, maybe I can fix it. Maybe the way I feel about him now will be all he needs to hear.

All these maybes. Like trying to put up a wall, brick by brick, only it’s haphazard. Holes and missing mortar. Gaps and shaky foundations. That’s when you tear it all down and start all over again. See if you can get it right.

When I open the door to our room, I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t expecting him to be back before me, and I run right into him as I’m coming in and he’s going out. There’s a second of shock. Of: _is it really you? yes it’s really me!_ and a thousand miles of phone lines close in, reeled up on a spool, and that’s how I feel when we fall into each other’s arms.

I really might cry. Out of relief, out of happiness, out of dread over what I’m going to say to him. He envelopes me in his summery scent, and my mouth finds his and tastes salty-sweet tears on his lips.

“I was just going out to wait for you,” he says in between kisses. “Oh, God! You’re here! You… _you_ …!”

“You…!” I repeat and we’ve backed into the room, the door still wide open, and I don’t even care.

We fall on a bed in a heap. He’s mindful of my leg, and I wrap myself around him like a hungry vine. We kiss like there’s no tomorrow, sloppily, hungrily, and tears fall from his face onto mine.

“You’re a sap.” I kiss them away, I kiss his eyelids; he tastes like electric green leaves draped over a mossy pond.

“I’m a sap for you. Oh, God, Gene. I thought I was going to die!”

“I totally died!”

The coats are too bulky and I remove them. Then the layers are too cumbersome so he removes them. Then before another layer comes off, he gets up to shut the door, locks it - even though there’s no one here but us - and then there’s nothing but skin and heat and his saliva and his sweat and I’m going to die again. Just… _die._

Our breathing gets heavy and we stop for a second. He lays a hand over my chest and says, “I want to talk to you about something.”

I can’t get enough of his mouth. Each time I think it’ll be the last kiss, and I’ll let him talk, it isn’t.

He gives me a closing peck, like the end of a chapter, and looks at me with eyes like a bashful green cape. “We had some guests with us for Christmas.”

“Family?”

“No. Well friends of the family, I guess you could say.” He pauses there, runs his eyes over my face. “One guy was a Captain. In the Navy.”

I put my hand over his. “Navy, huh?”

“Yeah.” He drags his teeth over his bottom lip. “He thought I might…I might join up when I graduate.”

My leg gets a cramp. I adjust it. “I see.”

“And I’m telling you about it because I won’t do it. Not unless you do it, too.”

I feel myself sinking into the bed. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”

“And I don’t know if - because of your leg - I don’t know if you can. Or would want to.”

I turn away from him, desire draining out of me faster than a tub.

“Hey.” He gently turns my face back to his. “This is important.”

I sigh. “I don’t know. Stanpole says my leg-break won’t matter. I mean, it hurts sometimes, but…”

“But?”

“Maybe it’ll all be over and we won’t have to worry about it.”

“Maybe.” He settles down beside me. “Maybe not. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

“You really mean that?”

He clasps my hands in both of his. “Yes. With all my heart.” He gives me a long look, his pupils dilating, making an eerie green eclipse. “I don’t want to lose you or go anywhere without you because…”

I begin to think then that he’s just as scared as me. This guy right here, this guy that jumped from the tree first, without a care in the world, is probably just as scared of anyone else’s love but his own.

He dips his head down, hiding it in my neck. I ruffle his hair with my fingers. “Finny.” His breath gives me chills. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“I’m a sap.”

“You are. But I am, too.” I adjust our heads so we’re eye-to-eye, direct and no mistakes. “You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to, but I feel the same way.”

He smiles, kisses the tip of my nose. I put that in my fire for more fuel.

“And I think that,” I begin. “I think that we should tell each other the truth. About anything. Everything.”

“We should,” he says solemnly.

My mind runs through the gazillion scenarios on how this could go. He jumps up in anger and leaves me here. He becomes inconsolable with grief that I would hurt him. He curses me, takes back everything he’s ever said, and leaves me laying here a lovesick mess.

All of that could happen, and I brace myself as best I can.

Just as I’m getting ready to say the words, he turns me, puts his arms around me, and gives me a tender kiss. “I’ve got something to tell you, Gene. The truth.”

“You do?”

“The truth is this.” His eyes go through mine like emerald points. A flush blooms over his skin. “I’ve been in love with you since you walked in here. Since you came in here, put your stuff on your bed, and told me your name. I wanted you every night. I thought about you every day. I thought it was hopeless. Because sometimes it seemed like you wanted me, too, and then sometimes it didn’t. It drove me crazy. I went home during that first vacation and cried my eyes out over you. I thought you’d never want me, you’d never love me, and I’d come back and I’d just try again. I thought if I couldn’t have you this way, I’d just have you as my friend. My best pal. And then you didn’t say it back, and, I don’t know, I thought it was too much. I thought I made a fool out of myself. So, I just put on this face, just put on this act, thinking if I acted like I was okay, I’d actually be okay. So, when you fell, it was like something fell inside me, too. I felt like I was broken, too.”

He stops for a second or so, and I can’t tell if I’m breathing or not.

“I was actually kind of relieved. Kind of happy about it. I thought, here’s my chance, you know? I know that sounds awful, terrible, but I wanted an opportunity to be with you so I took it. I thought, you know, if I just do everything I can for him, if I just spend time with him, he’ll love me back. He’ll want me back.” There’s a tear. Just one. Going all the way down the corner of his eye to his chin. “Then you took me home. You introduced me to your family. Then you wanted to kiss me, and I couldn’t believe it. It was sensational, that kiss. The best. Then that night in Ludsbury’s study, God, I thought I died and went to Heaven. And then you let me make love to you, and it was everything. God, Gene, it was everything. Everything I’ve ever wanted is right here.” He holds me so tight, cradling, and he’s so warm-blooded and alive. “Right here.” He stops again, and his voice gets so soft. “And now you’re right beside me, in my arms, and I’ve been on cloud nine. It’s like all my dreams came true.”

I don’t think there’s a stitch of oxygen in my body. I feel flattened out, laying naked on a cloud, soaring into the skies above. He’s an honest guy. He’s a good guy, and he’s too good for me.

He doesn’t know why I’m actually crying. Why I’m holding onto him like he might float away on that cloud, too. Why I let a gallon of tears leak onto his shoulder and grip his back so tight I leave marks.

He doesn’t know. He’ll never know.

His goodness carries him away on a fluffy cloud, and I’m nothing but dead earth. Dead weight. And this is going to kill me, because I’m a Forrester boy and I don’t deserve his goodness. I don’t deserve him, the words he said, or the way he makes love to me that night, slow and deep, he’s got the skin of my heart wrapped around his fingers, and in his eyes I can do no wrong. In his eyes, I’m as green as new leaves. We live in a city all alone, and we stay in that place until gravity comes calling, and I’m just a weighty thing, born out of the dead earth of Montgomery, and I’m filled with his liquid heat when he pulls away, I’m covered in his sweat and tears, and the only words that come out of me are: _Love you._

_Love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

_Te amo, Finny._

_Te amo, Gene._

And we’re stamped and sealed. Fate has called and we answered.

_Don’t ever cause any accidents._

* * *

Yeah. I know.

I know, I know.

After all of that, after all he said, I could’ve told him. Maybe. Maybe it wouldn’t have phased him or maybe he would have forgiven me. We love each other, and how could my Forrester badness keep that away?

But I’m never going to know.

Because he’s never going to know.

Not now. Not ever.

_It’s all water under the bridge_ , as my mother used to say - well, still says, but not that clearly - and it happened, it’s over, and we have bigger problems. And, yes, I know. I know what I intended, and it would have hurt him just as bad as if he’d fallen that day.

Wouldn’t it?

There’s no more talk of Navy Captains. No talk of what if, could we, should we, and what are we going to _do_? It’s only January, and I love January. I love this frosty awful month so much. I love the short days and long nights. I love the blizzard sounds outside. I love that there’s no one here, and we made sure. We went all around checking for open doors and noise, and there’s absolutely no one here. We take full advantage.

He gets on his knees when we’re in the shower. I look down, a spray of water on my chest, and I see his head, wet hair and my fingers sliding through. I’m up against the tile and the steam, the moisture, it adds something; we’ve never done this before. I push his hair out of his eyes, I stroke his cheek, I tell him he feels so good. He has to be laying down. My right knee isn’t reliable. He kisses me after, his taste on my lips, and he tells me it was sensational. We’re up all night, we’re asleep all day. We leave the door wide open, brazen and risky, someone might catch us, and it drives me insane.

We’re putting these acts in a bag, a collection we can draw from later when we’re surrounded again. When Navy Captains start knocking on our doors.

So we’ll just fill it until it’s bursting at the seams.

He stops me one night, when we’re right in the middle, I’ve got both of us in my hand and I’m so close. Was there something wrong? Am I doing it wrong?

He says that’s not what he wants.

What do you want?

He tells me to use my fingers first, and then I go as slow as he did and it’s unreal. Absolutely unreal, positively earth-shattering to be inside him this way. And I’m the only one, his one and only, and he’s mine, and he takes me. Bit by bit. Inch by earth-shattering inch. I think I’m going to come too soon, and we’re both so slick with perspiration that we’re sliding together like well-oiled machines, like two fish mating in the deep sea. I ask him if he’s okay, he says he is, and then he says I’m bigger than he thought. I laugh. He should have known.

Not like this. He wasn’t expecting this.

My grave concern over inches dissipates.

And I then I get locked into a rhythm, in the focus of his eyes, in the position. Beneath me, above him, I give him all I have. I coax sounds out of him, finding the spot he found inside me, and he tells me how good I feel. I close my eyes. I hear my name. I hear his name, and does he see? _Do you see? Do you see it?_

_Yes, I see it._

_Cover me._

_I’ll cover you._

I bite his ear like we’re animals.

These carnal things, they eat me alive. These hands that cling to me, they keep me up. These eyes that say to me I can do no wrong, they tug at me, unwind me. I may have believed it for a minute there. For a minute there, I’m just as he thinks, I’m just as he sees.

I’m everything he’s ever wanted.

_Everything I’ve ever wanted is right here._

And that’s it.

_Right._

Can’t hold back.

_Here._

His mouth is open against mine when I come, and there’s a warmth pooling against my stomach. Maybe it was the flood of me that set him off, maybe I got him at just the right angle. And I think there’s this exchange. I take his breath into my lungs, he takes mine, takes me into his body, and there’s warm-blooded life in both. Something to keep us alive. Something to revive. Something to absorb.

I’m shaking after, and I don’t know why, but there’s tears spilling out of my eyes. I’m ridiculous. He kisses them away, he says it was perfect. He says I didn’t hurt him. I tell him I’d never hurt him, and I’m afraid I’m going to ruin it. I can’t mess this up, he trusted me, he let me, I can’t ruin this.

“You’re not going to ruin anything,” he says.

I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud. Am I just babbling?

“I’m a sap,” I say.

“You’re my sap,” he says.

“Please.” I pull him into my arms and even though my leg is all stiff, I wrap all four limbs around him, and his hands are on my spine, stroking, calming. “Please, just love me.” I feel pathetic. Like a child.

“I do. I will. Always. I will love you.”

“I’m not worth it, Finny.”

“I love you.”

“I’m not.”

“ _I love you._ ”

“I’m going to love you all my life, and it’s going to kill me.”

His fingers trace my spine up and down, soothing. “Then I guess we’re both dead.”

“No.” I shake my head.

“Okay, then.”

He kisses my shoulders, my chest, and then gets a hold of my hands.

“Why do you like them so much?” I ask.

“Because they’re holding my heart,” he replies.

Fresh tears, but this time they’re coming from him.

“What are we going to _do_?” I whisper desperately.

“I guess we’re stuck together forever.”

“Okay, then.”

“I guess I’ll die in your arms.”

“Not if I do first.”

_You’d have to kill me first. HAHA!_

We’re staring at each other, and for some inexplicable reason, we start giggling. It’s stupid. It doesn’t make sense, but we laugh like we just shared a dirty joke. Dirty secrets settling into these sheets like dust, semen and sweat, we’ll need to do the laundry.

That just makes it funnier. I don’t know how to do laundry. Neither does he.

“We should do something,” he says later.

“Haven’t we?”

“We should commemorate this occasion.” He puts his arm behind his head. “So we’ll always remember it.”

“How?”

* * *

There’s about a foot and a half of new snow.

No one’s been around to shovel it, and I’m not about to do it, and he’s not about to do it, so it takes a while. It’s hard for me. We have to sort of ski-walk our way through, but the cold wears me out. I’m like some old codger hobbling around on a ship deck.

The last part of the way he carries me on his back, and I don’t want him to at first. I tell him he shouldn’t have to do that. It’s not fair. He picks me up anyway and we’re at the tree in a flash. He takes out a pocket knife.

“Are you going to climb it?” I worry. “Don’t climb it.”

“I’m not.”

His face is full of concentration as he carves on the frozen bark, pressing and chipping, I watch his work take shape.

There’s a G. Then there’s a P.

He starts carving around the letters, and I tell him not to make a heart.

“Why not?” He asks.

“Make a circle instead,” I reply. “It’s better.”

“Why’s that?”

“It doesn’t end.”

* * *

There isn’t a real good way to dry our clothes.

We find a piece of rope and string it across the room. We hang our snow-sodden clothes on it, and stand half-naked, shivering, and it’s not very flattering. There’s no one here, so the heat’s not on full blast. We tried to find the thermostat and figured that might be locked up like a king’s ransom.

Rationing and all.

He grabs a blanket off the other bed and stands behind me, wraps us up, and I hear ice flicking against the window panes.

“A heart doesn’t end, too, you know,” he says after awhile.

“There’s a dip, though. Like if you trace it with your finger, there’s a break.”

“Why don’t people draw circles, then?”

“I guess it’s not as pretty.”

I turn my head to him and the way he lays his forehead against mine, the way our heads our positioned with the blanket around us, I think we’d cast a heart-shaped shadow.

His arms tighten around my waist. “One day, I want to stand like this with you and watch the sun go down. By a pond somewhere.”

“On a beach.”

“On a mountain top.”

I lift my head slightly and see his eyelashes against his cheeks. “On a ship.” They lift just a hair.

We fall onto a bed. He cuddles me, and I cuddle back. I think that’s the last time I’ll go outside for a while. Until I have to. Then I lay my head on his belly and my fingers on his birthmark. It’s peaceful. It’s like the end of a long trek and you’re back home safe, resting up, nowhere to be.

“Circles don’t end,” he whispers.

“I wanted to kiss you when you came to see me,” I say. “When you put your arm around me, I wanted to kiss you right then.”

“I wish you would have.”

I can hear his voice in his stomach, like I can hear all the way inside him. I press my ear to his navel, a place he had a connection once. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what you’d do.”

“I thought it was obvious.”

“I think I noticed, but I didn’t want to.” My fingers wander from his birthmark to his hipbone. I want to be able to say the same things that he said to me, but none of it would be true. I didn’t feel like this the whole time, and I can’t say that. Is it still a lie if you never say it?

I turn on my other side. “I’ll go with you.”

He’s laying with his hands behind his head, on full display. The kind of position that says: _I had big dreams and they all came true._

“Better make sure it’s okay first,” he says.

“It will be. I’m better because of you.”

He sits up so I’m laying across his legs. “Right here.” He lays a hand across my heart.

“Right here.” I lay my hand over his.

If there was a bug in here, just a beetle or a fly, something that isn’t smart enough to know, just a creature passing by, a transient in these moments, looking around with fractured eyes, I like to think about what it would see.

I close my eyes. I pretend. I see the smooth motion of his hips. My hand splayed on his chest. His lips reciting silent promises against my neck. The muscles of his arms strained. Fractured visions, fractured scenes, the motions, the heat, the musk of us clinging to every corner of this room. When I open my eyes there’s a second where we’re split into hundreds of hexagons; one vision in multiples. Him and me making love in multiple dimensions, in layers of light and sound.

No one is ever going to know. No one is ever going to see. Because he covers it up. He puts his arms around me, there’s a heavy thud against my palm, and his face is nuzzled against my cheek, panting and swearing. I’m full of him. My arms, my hands. My heart so full, it may burst at the seams. It takes me a minute or two, it takes me a while to pull all the pieces of myself back. My hands unclench his shoulders, my legs unfold from around him. I sink into the bed under his weight, and he’s holding it in, not letting it escape. As long as he stays here, I’m everything he’s ever wanted.

When he tries to pull away, I pull him back. “Don’t.”

We get all tangled, settled. I close my eyes, and my fingers stretch out to find his, my lips rest against the coiled shell of his outer ear. I wonder if I’ll hear the ocean in it.

“I’d fall off a million trees for you,” I whisper.

“And I’d catch you every time.”

“A billion.”

“Every time.”

“A trillion.”

“Every. Time.”

“A ship?”

He shakes his head. “No.” This makes me laugh, but he turns his face to me with a seriousness. “I hope we get some time. Before.”

“We’ll have some time. We should.”

“I want to take you home with me. Meet my folks and Tabitha. They’ll love you. They’ll think you’re so brave.”

“I’m not brave at all.”

“Loving someone is brave.”

“Then that makes two of us.”

* * *

We have to shut the door.

A few guys start coming back, making noise, it echos in the halls. It’s no one we really know. No one that matters that much, but still. We have to shut the door.

I dare him not to talk. I dare him not to make a sound. He double dares me. He says I’m louder than him. I say we’ll see about that.

So it becomes this thing. During the day, when it’s completely obvious there’s someone here, we get into bed. It drives me absolutely crazy, and while both of us are straining, holding back, the other sounds of lovemaking enhance. The friction of skin against skin. Panting breaths. A low growl in his throat right before he comes. He clamps both hands over his mouth, his eyes go otherworldly, and I watch, I want to see: giddy moss, mystical cape, intelligent chartreuse. I’m so pleased with myself, my teeth sink into his shoulder, and the marks stay for hours after. I run my fingers over them again and again, kissing and licking the place I lost myself.

We can’t take anymore showers together, but he backs me up against the desk, my right leg over his shoulder, and completely disassembles me.

“Dammit. Damn you,” I hiss, my jaw clenched so tight.

He loves it. Damn him and his mouth. Damn him and this stupid dare. He can just take me apart. Just unravel me like a ball of yarn. And he knows now. He’s had plenty of time to learn, to figure me out, to get it just right. I didn’t have a chance. Not a chance in hell.

Afterward, he kisses me with such pride. “You talked. I win.”

“You win,” I mumble. I can hardly hold myself up. I slump against him, and he’s just beaming.

And that’s it then. Everyone comes back. We have to come out of our room now and put on some kind of show. I have to pretend I’m happy to see people. I have to listen to Brinker’s mouth, bragging over what he got for Christmas, and endure Leper’s questions about how I’m doing.

It’s hard to stay awake when it’s daylight. We both yawn and squint at the clouds like vampires. It’s slow-going, falling back into a routine, and I feel like everything is processing around me while I sit still.

Classes start. There’s books. There’s sharpened pencils and pathways in the snow. There’s “hey!” and “how are ya?” and “gee, January is such a drag, huh?” and I hate it. Our January rides off into the sunset, head lowered in defeat, a march of shame.

Finny lays beside me as we go to sleep. I hear voices and footsteps, the hum of a hive, except there’s no honey here. He tugs at my clothes, and he loves it when I wear something with buttons. He loves to undo them. One by one. I get so impatient. I don’t have the restraint to do it back.

“Bet you can’t be quiet,” he says, his voice so sultry, so promising of the the things he’s going to do to me.

I can’t even manage a grin.

“What’s the matter, Gene?” He’s got me naked in seconds.

“I don’t like this.”

He’s straddling my hips, already rock-hard. “But…I thought - I thought that -”

“Not you. This.” I gesture around us. “All this.” I fiddle with a corner of a blanket. “It’s over. It’s like it never happened.”

“That’s not true.”

“Everything’s the way it was. Just all over again.”

“There isn’t much we can do about that.”

“I know. I just didn’t think it would go by so fast. I feel like I’m losing you. Already.”

He gets off me and lays down beside me. “That’ll never happen. And what else can we do? We can’t make everybody go home and just stay at Devon forever all by ourselves.”

“Why not?”

He smiles. “God, I love you.”

I pull him into an embrace. “Can we just lay here for a minute?”

“Of course.”

And it’s time that’s spent like this. In perfect silence, and in a perfect embrace. He’s taken - stolen, whatever - my heart and kissed it every shade of green. And I might be just a Forrester boy with no hope, but I’m his Forrester boy. I’m everything he’s ever wanted. Dream come true.

Right here.

And I want to believe in it just as much as he does. I hold him tight, and I will it, I wish for it, I’d sacrifice a lamb for it.

But there’s weeds.

A choking mess of weeds. If only my touch could shrivel them dead. If only my gaze could zap them into vapor. If only each time I pulled one up, ten more didn’t grow in its place. Old Claudine, can you help a Forrester boy out?

I make a private vow to take each living breath he gives me, each tender sweet word he says, each piece of his heart that he willingly sets into my hands, string it all into a circle, eternal and complete, and I place it into that wild choking mess, and let that be. Just be.

Because that’s what it will take.

I can’t do this on my own. I need him. I need his love and his goodness, the half of me that could have been but never was, and my lips find the very center of his warm-blooded goodness, a soft throb against bone and skin, and that’s what it will take. A union of flesh, a union of hearts and souls, and I let him love me. I let it cradle me, surround me, and make me whole.

I want to be worthy. I want to be just as he sees.

I want to be everything. Everything he’s ever wanted.


	11. Chapter 11

I wish there was a book.

Something like: _How To Be Everything He’s Ever Wanted_. Or: _Be His Everything in 5 Easy Steps!_ Something to skim over in the library when Finny’s in the gym. When he’s doing his damnedest not to give anything away. When I can pretend I already knew this long before, that I know things, and I’m not just dead weight.

Is this a burden? Am I becoming a chore when he has to hold open doors for me or lead me through a shoveled path to make sure I don’t fall down? Even though his eyes sparkle when he looks at me, speaks to me, takes my elbow in that friendly way - just friends, just pals, everybody! - I think I’ve taken this too far. I should stop being so needy already.

“There’s never been anybody else,” I say to him after dinner and we’ve just shut the door. “No one before you. Not at all.”

He stops unwinding his scarf from around his neck.

“I just wanted you to know that.”

He tilts his head like this is some kind of revelation. I keep giving him little tastes of my soul. I can’t stop, even if I wanted to.

I can see it on his face - he’s trying to figure out where this is coming from. How did we go from idle chatter through the snow, to being perfectly at ease, to me just blurting this out for no reason?

“I just wanted you to know.” I try to answer his question.

He helps me take off my winter layers. He sits beside me. I feel stupid. He’s bound to think I’m lying. I’m not. Polly Pingwell doesn’t count, but I feel like I just told a lie. Once you say one, everything becomes one.

He takes my hand and winds his fingers around mine. “Do you want there to be someone else?”

“No.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.”

“I don’t know why I said that. I guess I just realized it myself.” And therein lies the problem. I know what I’ve just promised him, what I’ve admitted, with all that hangs over my head, and now he’s fulfilling a role in my life that no one else will ever be able to fulfill. I’m making it worse, I think. It must be the pressure, the burden, of being everything he’s ever wanted. I want to say all the things he’s ever wanted me to say.

“It’s the same.” He nods like he’s just come to a conclusion. “It’s the same with me. No one else before you. And no one else ever.”

I sigh. “This is what I’m afraid of. That we won’t get to sit here like this again. Like by this time next year, where will we be? What will we be doing?”

“Why do you worry so much?”

“Why don’t you worry so much?”

He pulls me closer to him and I think his eyes are like the still waters of a lake reflecting the young leaves of oaks and maples. “Worrying is like giving up. It’s like giving up right now for a later time that might not ever happen.”

“But if you don’t think about it, it might happen, and you won’t be ready.”

“It’s not an exam, Gene.”

I’ve always thought that when two different people tell you the same thing, then you should start listening. Or no. That’s not true. I’ve never thought that until right this second.

He leans his head against mine. “Let’s not worry. Please.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“That makes two of us.”

* * *

Once, emphasis on _once_ , momma indulged Althea and I in a story.

You have to understand that Althea and I were annoying kids. Ending up with two when you only expected one is one thing. Adding on to that, neither of us liked sitting squarely in between Tanner the Great and Randy the Baby, which meant less attention, even though we’re twins for Christ’s sakes. That should have been something special within itself, but I guess it wasn’t. But had it just been one, I don’t think either of us could have endured the middle spot alone.

Hence, we were annoying. And we annoyed momma for stories when Grandma DuBois wasn’t around. So, when she wasn’t too tipsy she told us how she met dad. Apparently he was visiting Baton Rouge with some buddies from the University of Alabama. Momma was eighteen and he was twenty-two. She said Grandma DuBois practically beat her over the head with marriage to Jasper Farrington. Momma didn’t much care for him. He had a short neck, terrible dandruff, and inherited the Farrington propensity for mean-spirited competition. Momma said when he took her to parties or social gatherings, he was always trying to one-up the other fellas. His Ford was better. His guns. His alligator-skin shoes. He’d set up some kind of game where the other fellas could win something off him. His Ford. His guns. His alligator-skin shoes. It was always something cruel. Convince one of the old maid aunts that he was smitten with her. Steal the most pocket watches. Tripping the most old men. It was always something that would hurt an innocent third party. Momma said she couldn’t stand it.

So dad showed up to one of these social gatherings. Momma flipped the tables on Jasper and flirted with dad, thinking because he was older and hailed from Montgomery he wouldn’t indulge her, but he did, so Jasper set up a competition. You know, “friendly”, something like, “ _hey Forrester, if you can peek up all the dresses of the ladies here before me, you get my girl_.” It was something like that. Momma might have made most of that up, honestly. And no one took it all that serious but dad, because who does those things anyway? Thirteen year old boys maybe? Certainly not grown ass men. And momma was bound to marry a Farrington. It was just in the cards. How it had to be.

Dad was slapped so many times. Kicked in the face once or twice. Forresters had a reputation in Baton Rouge that he didn’t make any better that day, but he did it. Dad peeked up dresses like some common masher to “win” my mother and he technically did. But because Jasper was an asshole or because dad went to UA or because Grandma DuBois would sooner die than see her daughter wed to a Forrester boy, he couldn’t collect his prize and went back to Montgomery empty handed.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later, after momma dumped neckless Jasper and went to Montgomery for a reason she never explained, that she and dad actually started courting. Then it all happened. An engagement. Grandma DuBois on a fainting couch. Objections before the wedding. During the wedding. After the wedding. It wasn’t until Tanner was born when everyone shut up. Momma and dad triumphantly showed off their good omen, their reward and blessing, to every DuBois and Forrester alive and there were no more objections.

It’s always strange to think there was a time before. That the people I call parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents lived lives before I ever lived mine. And that it all carried over and me and my siblings were just innocent additions that overheard and sometimes oversaw. A little bit at a time, we saw and heard that momma and dad did what they wanted and were rewarded for it and everyone resents it. It worked for them, and even though they’re both screwed up now and most likely hate each other, something came out of it. I was one of those things.

It’s this that’s on my mind as I make my way to the gymnasium where Finny is waiting on me. He wanted to come with me to see Stanpole. Just making sure, like I am, that I will have a clean bill of health.

My thoughts are swirling like snow flurries so I don’t hear him at first. I squint my eyes against a gust of wind and in that gust I hear my name. I turn to see Ludsbury coming towards me. My face flushes up hot.

“Gene,” he says, a little out of breath. “I need you to come with me.”

My hand tightens on the cane. “What? Why?”

“You’ve got an urgent phone call.”

The hot flush moves to my stomach. “From who?”

“Come on,” he gestures, and I follow him to his study. I try to avoid looking at the fireplace. Or the rug. Or the wing-backed chair. Or the fancy sofa with the blanket draped over the back. Or just anything at all.

He hands me the telephone and takes a seat at his desk. I thought he’d at least be courteous enough to let me have some privacy, but this is his study after all. I know it well. Too well.

“Hello?” I say.

“Gene?” Althea’s voice sounds distant and tinny. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her over a phone line before.

“What’s going on?”

“Listen, daddy’s wiring you some money. You’ve got to come home. There’s -” her breath catches and I think I hear a sniffle.

Immediately my mind is filled with terrible visions. Momma laying dead at the bottom of the steps. Randy laying out in the street, hit by a car. I begin to feel dizzy, sick. “There’s what?”

“It’s Tanner.” There’s a long pause, and I think we’ve been disconnected. Then the dizziness turns into a chill. I feel every ounce of my blood turn ice cold. “He’s hurt, Gene. It’s bad. Real bad.”

I can’t talk. My mouth goes dry.

“They’re bringing him home right now. To Montgomery General.”

I find my voice and it’s like a squeak. “What happened?”

“We don’t know yet. We just know…oh, Gene,” she begins to sob, “Gene, I think we might be saying goodbye.”

The telephone nearly slips out of my hand. Ludsbury stands up and motions for me to sit, but I don’t. “Okay.” My throat feels like it’s closing up. “Okay. I’m coming.”

“Hurry, Gene,” she cries. “Please hurry.”

Then we’re disconnected.

* * *

It all happens in a flurry, a panic.

Packing my things, leaving Finny a note, Ludsbury driving me to the train station. And that ride, that long long ride all the way home again feels like a procession to my own execution. Tanner’s voice echos in my head the whole way there: _you ain’t nothing like me!_ My mighty Marine brother. Forrester pride. Forrester legacy. He was born and bred for it. He can’t die. He just can’t. It seems impossible, some cosmic joke, and I don’t know how I should feel. I feel selfishly angry that he would up and get himself hurt. Doesn’t he know that I’m stamped and sealed? Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to do everything right and I’m the idiot that gets injured?

I’m wilting by the time I get to Montgomery. Hardly any sleep and I haven’t eaten a thing in thirteen hours at least. I don’t expect anyone to be home so I take a taxi straight to Montgomery General. I have to ask at least six people before I’m pointed in the right direction. My knee is aching and stiff, my stomach hollow, and I’m running on fumes by the time I find the room. And it was easy to find. Cora, Randy, and Althea are sitting just outside on a bench. Althea jumps up when she sees me, her face wet with tears. As I approach her, the door to Tanner’s room swings open, a nurse coming out, and I turn my head to look inside.

Dad’s sitting with his head in his hands, his thick dark hair mussed and messed like he just got caught in a violent gust. Momma’s prostrated on the bed, shrieking and wailing like a banshee.

And Tanner.

Oh dear God, Tanner.

One half of his face is bandaged up, but I can tell his skin is mottled and red underneath. The other half is swollen and I see one eye open, lolling around like a blue-gray marble in a glass of sour milk. My stomach clenches, and then I see it. The doctor standing at the end of the bed, a nurse holding a bag, the tinge of iodine, and they’re draining a fluid out of him, a foul-smelling fluid right from the two bandaged stumps that used to be Tanner’s legs.

I turn like I’m going to vomit, but I heave up nothing but hot bile and air and Althea snatches me from falling to the floor.

“Shit!” I spit out. “Shit!”

“Come on, sit down!” She pulls me to the bench. “Put your head between your knees!” She pushes my head down.

“I can’t…I can’t…” I feel like I may actually pass out.

Althea runs and calls for a nurse. They bring me a cold compress and Cora gets me some water. I’m shaking so bad I can hardly get a sip. Althea holds my head, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. There’s a whiny pitch in one of my ears, and the whole hallway seems to tilt on an axis. The door closes and momma’s wailing muffles. I look up to see Randy hiding his face in Cora’s shoulder.

“Don’t let him in there.” It feels like I’m shouting but my voice is hoarse. “Do _not_ let him see.”

“He already saw,” Althea says sorrowfully. “We were all here waiting when they brought him in.”

Cora stands and takes Randy by the hand. “Come on Mr. Randolph. Let’s go outside for a spell.”

Randy follows along, his face as white as a sheet, and I know mine is just the same. I wait until they’re down the hall, and I turn to Althea. “What happened to him?”

“A grenade.” More tears spill down her cheeks. “There was another Marine here, told us he was trying to get his men out of the crossfire when it went off.”

I think about what he told me, about the mine, and his men getting blown up. Comeuppance perhaps? Whether that’s so or not, Tanner doesn’t deserve this. He’s a Forrester, has just as much badness in him as me, but he doesn’t deserve this. I feel the injustice for him. I’d just as soon be dead.

I sit for awhile, trying to get my equilibrium back. Althea lays her head on my shoulder and I lay my head on hers. The last time I remember us sitting like this was when we were about nine, almost ten, and got the bright idea to go for a drive. We got dressed in our Sunday best. Althea piled some books in the driver’s seat. She steered while I pushed the pedals. We were nearly out of the driveway and onto the street when dad came sprinting out of the house, a napkin tucked into his shirt, holding a chicken leg, and got in front of the car to stop it. We weren’t going that fast, but since I couldn’t see out, Althea shrieked at me to hit the brake, but I hit the clutch and the car started making weird noises and we nearly ran our father over.

He got us out, grabbed Althea by the arm, me by the ear, and dragged us back inside. We sat like this in the parlor for what seemed like forever, awaiting our fate. Dad wouldn’t raise his hand to Althea, so she had to stand in the corner while I got the belt. I couldn’t sit for two days straight. And Tanner came home, leaned on the door to my bedroom, and snickered and jeered at me for another two days. I’d get so mad at him, but I’d just sit there and say nothing.

Exactly what I’m doing right now.

The door to Tanner’s room opens again and a nurse rushes out, the tang of iodine and sterilized linen all around her. Dad comes out into the hall with the doctor, and momma’s warbling out “It Is Well With My Soul” by Tanner’s bed. I turn my head, afraid I’ll catch another glimpse. Althea squeezes her eyes shut.

“We’ll take him into surgery in an hour,” the doctor says. “It’s a miracle he made it back with all that blood loss.”

My dad’s face is as red as a tomato. “Y’all couldn’t save even one of them? My boy’s face is nearly burned off, and y’all couldn’t save either of his legs?”

The doctor shuts the door. “There was no way possible, Mr. Forrester. Not unless you wanted your son to perish from gangrene before he got here.”

Dad lights a cigarette and messes with his hair. “That damn fool General. Damn fool! I’ll write that son of a bitch! I’ll sue that son of a bitch!”

“Mr. Forrester, try to be practical. This is a war we’re in. I’ve seen many men return in worse shape than Tanner and many never to return at all. Now, we’ll do what we can for him, but it will take some time. He’ll need lots of care and lots of support from his family.”

“Care and support?” My father exhales smoke through his nostrils. He almost looks like a bull in one of those cartoons, ready to charge at the red cape. “He ain’t got no legs! What’s he gonna do? Walk around on two sticks?”

“One of my colleagues in Atlanta is a specialist. He’s helped hundreds of amputees regain their independence and work with their disabilities. Try to see the bigger picture, Mr. Forrester. Tanner is lucky to be alive.”

“You call that life?” My father points to the door. “That ain’t _life_! My boy had his whole _life_ ahead of him, he was top of his class, a runner! Now what the hell’s he gonna do?”

The doctor shakes his head. “Please give it some time, Mr. Forrester.”

“Time,” my father repeats with a harsh laugh. “All you docs are the same, I tell you what. All the same! If it ain’t you on that slab, then it don’t matter a lick!” He stubs out his cigarette on the wall, and lights up another. “Damn fool General! I’ll see to his resignation if it’s the last thing I do!”

The doctor sighs. “I’ll be back in a bit to prep Tanner for surgery.” He turns and walks off down the hall.

Dad smokes his cigarette. Althea and I sit. We say nothing. We just sit.

I don’t know whether to feel hopeful or worse. I only broke my leg. I still have it. I couldn’t imagine looking down one day to see it gone. To see a stump, a stump draining and oozing. My stomach clenches and rolls again.

“Eugene,” my father says quietly.

I look up at him. His face has gone from tomato-red to paper-white. His hair is still sticking up on the sides. If I didn’t know him at all, I’d think he was a lunatic loose from the psych ward.

“Come on,” he gestures. “We need to go to the house.”

“What for?”

“Your momma’s gonna be spending the night, I’m sure. And I don’t see any use in doing any different. You can help me pack a bag for her.”

I slowly stand up, puzzled.

“You want me to come, too, daddy?” Althea stands with me.

“No. You stay here with Randy.” He looks around. “Where’s he gone?”

“Cora took him outside for a bit,” Althea replies. “He was awful traumatized. I could just see it.”

“He might as well get used to it,” my father says harshly. “We’ll all have to.” He turns to walk down the hall.

I turn to go with him, then back to Althea. “Do you need anything?”

“Could you get me my stationary? And a pen? I need to write a letter.”

“I will too.” I give her a hug and dad and I are off.

The car ride is quiet. Dad hunches over the steering wheel like he’s afraid it will get away from him. I should say something, anything, but I’m afraid if I open my mouth I’ll either scream or sob and I don’t want to do either one in front of my father.

“How’s your leg been?” Dad asks me.

“All right, I guess. Better. A lot better.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, it hurts sometimes, but it’s easier to walk now.”

He says nothing for a minute or two, then, “I’d like you to see Dr. Tellison while you’re here.”

“I was just going to see Dr. Stanpole when I got Althea’s call.”

“I’ll call up Tellison.” His voice is quiet, slow. “He’ll do right by us. You understand?” He glances at me.

“No. Not really.”

“Tellison can write a letter to the war department. Tell them you had a nasty leg-break.”

I turn to my father, not fully comprehending and yet afraid I might be.

Dad pulls the car into the driveway. He cuts the engine. “I ain’t going to have anymore sons going off to get blown up or shot up or anything else.” He looks at me sternly. “That broken leg is going to be your saving grace.”

“But…,” I feel a tightness in my throat. “But it’s fine now. Dr. Stanpole told me I’d be able to play sports this Spring.”

“Dr. Stanpole is a quack. He doesn’t know you like Tellison does.”

“I was going to join the Navy. My friend and I -”

“You ain’t joining no Navy. You hear me, Eugene?” He opens the door to get out. “I ain’t gonna have it. I ain’t gonna have another one of my boys coming home blown to bits.” He gets out and slams the door.

I watch him go into the house. I don’t move for a minute.

The realization of what my father intends to do descends on me slowly, painfully.

Lies. He’s going to get Tellison to tell a bunch of lies to keep me out of harms way. Keep me from serving my country. Keep the spare Forrester boy all in one piece.

Keep me from following Finny.

* * *

Tanner has about three surgeries.

When he’s awake at all, he’s groggy and incoherent. Momma won’t leave his side and has spent every night in his room. Tanner must have been having a nightmare or hallucinating or something because he started throwing all the flowers beside his bed at her. He didn’t seem to know who she was.

The doctor tries to keep her out of the room so Tanner can rest, but momma barges her way in and she threatens murder and lawsuits and tar and feathers if any of the nurses try to take her out. She sings him hymns, reads magazines, and shares fond memories, but he doesn’t respond to any of it. The times I’ve glanced in, I’ve seen him staring off with that one exposed eye, as if he can see all the phantoms of everyone that’s died in that room.

Althea, Randy, and I stay at home in the evenings. We go to the hospital during the day, but neither of us have gone into his room. I can’t do it. Althea can’t do it. We won’t let Randy do it. It’s as if crossing that threshold is accepting. I feel as if I might suffer some mortification for seeing him up close. As if I might turn to stone for daring to look upon Tanner in such a state.

I get a letter from Finny.

I sent him one the evening I arrived back. He apparently tried to call all day, but none of us were home. I can tell he was worried and frantic by the hard slant of his letters. I have that letter pressed to my heart as Althea comes into the library.

“You think I can go back now?” I ask her. “I’m missing classes…and him.”

She gives me a weary shrug and sits at the writing desk.

“I’m not being selfish, am I?”

She fiddles with her stationary. “I reckon not.”

“You know what dad told me?” I go sit across from her. “He told me he’s going to have Tellison give me a false medical exam so I’ll be exempt from service.”

I watch her reaction because it’s important. I’ve thought about it a lot, and dad hasn’t brought it up again. I’ve been hoping it was a moment of madness. His knee-jerk reaction to seeing Tanner so broken and literally only half the man he was. If he stood on those two stumps he’d be shorter than me. The thought is almost revolting. Like seeing a bird with a mouth instead of a beak.

Althea’s reaction isn’t much. She merely straightens out the writing desk, which didn’t need it to begin with, and shrugs again.

“Isn’t that ridiculous? Lying like that?” I offer more, suggesting, prompting. “Finny and I were going to join the Navy after graduation.”

She looks at me finally, pity crossing her features. “Oh, Gene.”

“What? Isn’t that crazy? My leg is fine. I’ll be just fine by then. Dr. Stanpole said so.”

“Oh, Gene.” She shakes her head. “Don’t you see? He’s not going to let you go anywhere now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tanner’s life is over. Or at least the one he was going to have, the one they always wanted him to have.” She leans forward to whisper. “He can’t have children. I overheard the doctor telling daddy.”

We both avert our gaze at the embarrassment of such a suggestion, at the idea that a man can’t do the very thing a man was made for. What does he become then?

I shake my head, refusing. “It’s not like he’s dead. He’s alive and he’ll adjust. Won’t he?”

Althea looks away from me and it feels like the high Georgian ceilings are closing in.

“I should go back,” I say. “In the morning. I should get back.”

“You ought to stay a bit,” she says. “At least until the end of the week.”

“Who’s side are you on?”

“What do you mean?” She bristles.

“I can’t stay here and let dad bring Tellison over. I have to go back. I’m missing stuff.”

“Fine then,” Althea crosses her arms. “You go right on back, if you want. We’re bringing Tanner to the house and you won’t have to deal with any of it.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“I know you have _stuff_ you’re missing, Gene. But family is family. Tanner needs us now.”

“He doesn’t need me.” I stand up. “I’m the last person he needs.”

I leave the room, ending our conversation, and I spot Randy sitting on the stairs. He’s been withdrawn and I realize then he hasn’t had a single fit since Tanner came back.

“You okay?” I ask him.

He stares at me.

I sigh and take a seat on the bottom step. For the first time since I’ve come back, I notice my right leg isn’t aching at all. My knee bends easy.

“Look,” I say to him. “Tanner’s hurt, but he’s going to be okay. He’s not going to die. Like I said.”

Randy scowls at me. “Why are you always leaving us?”

I sigh again and look over to the library. I expect Althea will be able to overhear just fine. “Because momma and dad chose to send me to school. It’s far away. And I have to finish. I have to graduate, so I can be a soldier like Tanner.”

Randy’s face scrunches up and I’ve said the wrong thing. He turns and stomps up the stairs. I see Althea in the doorway of the library, leaning idly on the frame.

“You could’ve said it differently,” she says. “If there’s anybody here that needs you right now, it’s him.”

“What about what I need?” I frown.

She doesn’t answer me. She turns and goes back into the library. I hear the sound of paper and her pen. I wonder if she still believes in morale.

* * *

The trains are all screwed up.

Governor Sparks signed an order to prioritize travel for military personnel and the shipment of arms. Leisurely travel or commuting for non-military jobs suffer, and certainly school boys needing to get back to class and their lovers fall low on the list.

I go into the kitchen where Cora is stirring a pot of soup. I stare at the phone and wonder how I’d even get a hold of Finny that way. Could I call Ludsbury’s phone? Would he take pity on me and let me talk to Finny? Or Stanpole? Could I call his office?

“I ain’t leaving, Mr. Eugene,” Cora says. “Dinner has to be on time tonight.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“They’re bringing your brother home any day now.”

“I thought they were taking him to Atlanta first.”

“Don’t know nothing about that.” She tastes the soup, makes a face, and pours in some salt.

I don’t want to be here when they bring Tanner home. I know it’s terrible, awful, but I don’t. I want to get as far away from here as I possibly can. And that, as a whole, is pretty terrible. I suppose I’m selfish after all.

“Who are you calling anyway?” Cora asks. She’s never asked.

“School. My teachers.”

“You think you’re going back to school?” She surveys me with semi-amusement.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t know nothing about that.”

At dinner momma isn’t there. Dad comes in late. His hair looks normal, neater. Randy doesn’t eat. Althea tries. I just sit there. And Tanner’s empty chair annoys me. I have an urge to kick it over. There’s no point in it now. There never was.

“I need money to get back,” I announce tersely, breaking the stone cold silence.

Dad keeps eating his soup. He wipes his mouth on a napkin.

“I can’t miss anymore classes,” I say. “I won’t graduate on time, and I’ll need to leave in the morning. I’ll find a way to get there. Don’t worry about that.”

Dad glances up at me.

“It’s important,” I continue. “And Tellison doesn’t need to see me. Dr. Stanpole is a good doctor. I’ll see him when I get back.”

Dad puts down his spoon, wipes his mouth again, and steadily gazes at me across the table. “Got good news for you, Eugene. You won’t have to travel in that mess ever again. You’ll be transferring to St. Paul’s.”

Althea looks up from her bowl and over at me, her eyes wide. If it wasn’t for that, I’d think I hadn’t heard what I just heard.

“I need to go back,” I shake my head.

“Spoke to a fella up there just this morning. A Mr. Ludsbury, I believe? He’s having your records sent down.” He places both hands flat on the table. “St. Paul’s did right by Tanner, and they’ll do right by you, too.”

I can’t swallow. My throat closes up. I shake my head again. “No. I -”

“And maybe you ought to think about coming down to the Exhibition Hall with me this week. There’s some people I’d like to introduce you to.” I can’t tell if dad’s angry, and that’s a dangerous thing. When his voice is this steady. When it’s cut down one octave, it’s his warning, it’s his hiss, the rattle of a snake.

My voice comes out weak. “I need to go back.”

“Daddy,” Althea turns to him. “But shouldn’t Gene ought to -”

“He ought to nothing!” Dad slams his hand on the table making the cutlery rattle. “I ain’t gonna have it! I ain’t gonna have anymore of my boys torn apart!”

The full weight of it hits me all at once and it hurts. I feel like Giles Corey getting pressed with stones and all that idiot could do was call out, “More weight!” Dead weight. Dead Montgomery earth. I shake my head again and again until I’m sure it might roll right off my neck.

“It is what it is,” dad says dismissively. “We all gotta make sacrifices. Like Tanner. He made one for his country, for us all, and now this is what it is. How it has to be.”

A protest, a scream, gets lodged in my vocal cords and I can’t make a sound.

It’s me now.

It’s not Tanner anymore.

He’s finished, and I’m going to get it all.

I’m a second-born Forrester boy, and I’m going to get it all.


	12. Chapter 12

Ironically, the last time I fought with dad was when he sent me to Devon.

It wasn’t surprising in the least that my parents were sending me to a different school than Tanner. St. Paul’s caters to the upper echelons of Montgomery society, but I wasn’t born to be a St. Paul’s boy. I knew that, but still I fought with dad over Devon for a week straight. It was so far away, I complained, and I’d have to leave my friends - which was a lie, I had no friends - and dad swore there’d been Forresters there before me and it was good enough for them - no one important, of course, just like me - so why keep me in Montgomery? I knew all this. I knew I wouldn’t be going to St. Paul’s and no where near home and still I fought with dad and, obviously, I didn’t win.

It wasn’t much different this time. Only the duration. I should have known better. I should have known that hollering at my father that it wasn’t fair, I was so close to graduating, it doesn’t make any sense to do this to me now wouldn’t change his mind. Because sense doesn’t factor into this. Or fairness. Or anything that I want or need. Everything has changed. Tanner will never stand on his own two feet again, stand tall, run like a champion, or see the same face in the mirror.

It’s me now. I know what’s happening. I watch my entire future change trajectory, full steam ahead, and I cannot win an argument with my father and I cannot leave Finny behind.

I think of things I can do. I sit in the library, my left knee bouncing, breaking into a cold sweat, and I think I could just walk out of here. I could just walk out of this house right now, hitchhike my way back to Devon and Finny, and who’s to stop me? What’s dad going to do? Clobber me over the head, drag me back, lock me in the cellar? Chain me to barrels of Grandpa DuBois’ bourbon? Lock me in my room? What could he do? Nothing. I nod to myself. If I left, if I just went somewhere, anywhere, he couldn’t find me. And there’ll be no St. Paul’s, no Exhibition Hall, no shoving me into proper society and pretending Tanner’s some lost cause, and I can go back to being the spare and no one giving a shit where I graduate from.

I’ll walk out this door. I stand up. I’ll walk out this door - or limp out, I guess - and I’ll scrounge up some money, I’ll take a train to somewhere, anywhere, and by the time dad figures it out, I’ll be long gone. There’s nothing he can do about it. I’m not a prisoner. I’m not going to die here. I’m not going to live here and marry here and raise sons here. I want no part of it.

But my legs freeze up. I stand stiff and stony and something gnaws at me. I go to the writing desk and snatch up Althea’s stationary and a pen. I start writing Finny, scribbling out misspelled words, my hands shake as I try to explain it to him, tell him what I’m going to do, what he can do to help me.

Althea appears at my elbow. I keep writing and she reaches out and gently stills my hand. “Gene.”

“I’m not doing this. I’m going back. You have to help me. Can you help me?”

She takes the pen out of my hand and sits in front of me.

“This can’t be happening. It’s not fair.” I crumple up the paper in my hand. The night in Ludsbury’s study plays through my mind in vivid detail.

“Maybe you should go along with it,” she says quietly. “Just for a little while. If daddy thinks you’re going to listen to him, he might let up.”

“I have to go back, Althea.” I sound so helpless. “I promised him that after graduation we’d join the Navy together.”

“There won’t be any Navy for you. We know that.”

“Why not? Look.” I stand up, without the cane, and put my weight on both my legs. “I couldn’t do this a few months ago. Tellison isn’t blind.”

“He’s not, but he’ll understand with Tanner’s condition and all -”

“Tanner is _alive_. Why is dad acting like he’s dead? I know he can’t walk or have kids ever, but so what? Why does that have to mean my whole life has to change? Just like that?” My right leg cramps out a warning and I sit again. “Tanner will need the inheritance. He’ll need all this. He won’t be able to take care of himself. Ever.”

“They haven’t written him completely off. But if you were daddy, you wouldn’t want to risk having another son mauled in the war. Or dying in it.”

“That’s what pisses me off.” I take out some more stationary and grab the pen from her. “It’s so easy. They just bypass him so easy like this. Maybe I should get mauled. Maybe I should break both my legs and they can hover all over Randy and leave me alone.”

“It might be good for you and him if you stay,” she muses. “It’s less risky if you’re not around each other all the time.”

“But I want to be around him all the time. Don’t you? Don’t you want to be with her all the time?”

“Of course I do. But the only reason no one has found us out is because we’re so far apart.”

“A thousand miles apart?”

“She lives up in Huntsville. It’s not ideal, but there’s nothing we can do about that right now.”

“Well, there’s something I can do.” I start writing again. “Right now. Right this second.”

“If he loves you and you love him, distance won’t matter. People always find a way when they’re in love. It’s some kind of law.”

“You wouldn’t be saying these things if it was you.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’d expect you to say them to me.”

I put the pen down and put my face in my hands. “I can’t live without him. I can’t stand it when I’m not with him. This is the worst. Just the worst.”

“Maybe he can meet you somewhere halfway. Daddy’s at the hospital so much, he might not realize you’re gone. And they’re bringing Tanner home on Monday.”

“And I’ll be going to St. Paul’s on Monday.”

“Don’t write a letter.” She pushes the stationary away. “It’ll take too long. Send a telegram. Get him to call you up. Somewhere in Virginia should be about halfway for you both.”

“How am I going to get there? I don’t have any money.”

“I can lend you some. Now, come on. Get some rest. You can send him a telegram first thing tomorrow.”

Althea stands me up and helps me over to the stairs. I’m back to limping again and she helps me into my room.

I collapse on my bed. “I don’t even know if he can do it. He can’t just drop everything for me.”

“I saw how he looks at you, and I think he’d do anything for you, Gene. Absolutely anything.”

* * *

Halfway is Harrisonburg.

We find it on a folding map in the library, and I keep thinking that I won’t be able to stop myself from going all the way back to Devon, grabbing Finny, and taking him somewhere with me. I don’t even care where. I’d live under a tarp with him. I’d live in a train car like a hobo with him.

I send him a telegram then spend the rest of the day sitting in the kitchen by the phone. Cora is nonplussed.

“You learning all about roasting turnips, Mr. Eugene?” she says, opening the oven to give them a stir.

“Sure am,” I reply, staring down the phone, willing it to ring.

“You don’t need to sit here. I’ll come get you if it’s for you.”

“I know, but it’s important.”

“Must be.” She wipes her hands on a dish towel and begins rolling some dough. “Must be some kinda phone call.”

Finny would be leaving the gymnasium right about now, and if I were there with him, he’d be walking with me to Latin. We’d pass Leper on the way. He’d have his hand on my elbow and I’d limp a little harder so I could lean into it. So he could hold me tighter. And I’d be looking forward to tonight, after dinner, when we would curl up in my bed, where he’d kiss each of my fingers, slip himself inside me, his voice just a breath in my ear: _I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Gene._

The cruelty of having this precious time taken from me so abruptly nearly makes my heart shatter. This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. I never asked for this, never wanted this, and everything I’ve ever wanted is a thousand miles away. It’s not too much to ask for, is it? I’ve never asked for much, never wanted much, and I think I might really die if he doesn’t call right now. My lungs will cease to work. My heart will stop beating if I can’t hear his voice.

“Long as you sitting here, stir this.” Cora hands me a bowl full of some concoction and a spoon.

I absentmindedly stir what smells like cake batter and stare at the phone. _Ring. Please ring, dammit._

After about twenty minutes of impatient stirring, the telephone comes to life and my blood goes electric green in my veins. I snatch up the phone. “Finny?”

“Herman?” Says the female voice on the other end. “Oh, Herman, can you be a dear and meet me at the depot instead? I won’t have any guests this evening, and I -”

My irritation is instantaneous. “Who is this?”

“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Who is this?”

“This is Gene.”

“Oh my,” says the flustered voice. “Oh my, I do believe I’ve dialed the wrong number.”

The call is disconnected and I sit there so long that the operator comes on. I mumble an apology and hang up.

Cora shifts her eyes to me. “Not who you was expecting, hm?”

“No.” I continue staring at the phone. “It was a lady looking for dad.”

Cora’s lips purse and she takes the bowl from me. “You ain’t the only one in this house that waits.” She gently nudges me out of the chair. “Why don’t you go wait in the parlor for a spell? I promise I’ll come get you, all right?”

“All right.” I leave the kitchen and can’t help but think about filthy bushes.

* * *

Finny calls just before dinner.

After some exaggerated eye rolls and fussing about not taking too long, Cora gives me some privacy. I will myself to turn into liquid. I will myself to melt like a New England snowman and zip through the phone lines and reform myself at Finny’s feet.

“Meet me in Harrisonburg,” I blurt out before he’s finished asking a list of questions.

“What? Harrisonburg?”

“Listen.” I’m starting to sweat. Mostly from the heat of the oven and mostly from the pain and desire pulsing through me that echoes my need to touch him, to see him, in the flesh. “Tanner’s been hurt real bad, and I -”

“Oh no. Is he dying? Is your brother going to die?”

“No, no, he’s not dying. He’s coming home on Monday, but my dad -”

“Oh God, Gene. I’m so sorry about all this! Your brother seemed so nice. I can’t believe this happened to him. It’s scary, isn’t it? A million things could happen to a guy out there!”

“Listen, Finny, please.” I make sure Cora’s not outside the door. “I need to see you. Can you meet me in Harrisonburg? It’s halfway between here and there. If we both leave tomorrow morning, we should get there at the same time.”

“Why? Why not just come back to Devon?”

“Because I…,” I stop there not wanting to say the words. I suppose if I say it to him, that makes it true. That makes it real. “Just meet me in Harrisonburg. A lot’s happened and I need to see you.”

There’s a pause. His voice lowers and I’m not sure where he’s at or who could be around listening. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

“I don’t know that for sure yet.” The little white lie comes out easy. “Please say you’ll meet me.”

“I’ll do my best, Gene. But they shut down one of the lines. An ice storm came through.”

“I don’t care. I’ll wait all day, all night if I have to. I need to see you.”

There’s another hesitation and I think, wildly, that he’s going to give up on me. He’s going to give up on us and let me waste away down here without him. I’m so much trouble, I’m so many problems, a predicament he may never get out of.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Okay, I’ll meet you. I’ll do everything I can.”

* * *

I leave extra early.

Before the sun comes up even. Althea promises to take dad out of the house after breakfast to see Tanner and keep him at the hospital for as long as possible. We don’t need to worry about our mother. She practically lives there now.

Althea gives me some train fare, making me promise to pay her back, and I do. I don’t know how or when, but I’ll do it. Anything to get me out of here, and she only gives me enough to get me to Harrisonburg. No further. I wonder if I could just rob a bank. With the way I’ve been feeling lately, I just might do it.

I take a Streamliner, the fastest there is with the fewest stops. By the time I cross into Virginia, the train is full of servicemen and women. Everyone on board is in some kind of uniform except me. And Tellison is really going to make up a bunch of lies to keep me from this? I don’t really want to join the Navy or go off to war at all. I don’t think anyone does, but the thought of Finny shipping off while I languish in Montgomery without him makes me physically ill. And then there’s a delay in Pulaski and I think I might pull my hair out. I’ll only have about an hour to spend with Finny before I’ll have to head back. Althea promised to cover for me at dinner. I’ll be home after bedtime at this rate.

When I finally get to Harrisonburg, I sit down on a bench and wait. I watch trains arrive, unload, and depart, looking in vain for those emerald eyes. I check the time over and over and watch all the minutes I’ll get to spend with him lessen. This was probably a stupid thing to do. I won’t get back before dad notices and there’s only so much Althea can do. And Finny can’t afford this. His family doesn’t have the kind of money mine has and he can’t afford long train trips like this. Perhaps my Forrester curse is selfishness. Pure, unadulterated selfishness. It’s almost like I can’t help myself.

“Gene?”

My head whips to the left and there he is, his coat unbuttoned and a backpack on his shoulders. I’m on my feet and over to him in two seconds flat and there I stop. My arms are dying to be around him, but I’ve got some sense of awareness. “Finny…” I try to still the pieces of me that are ready to burst.

He smiles and I’m going to die and we hover as close to each other as we dare. “Let’s go over here.” He points behind the station, near a grove of trees. And once we’re there, once we’re hidden, he kisses me fiercely, my cane falls to the ground as I wrap my arms around him, meeting his lips with equal ferocity.

I’ve been starved of this for days and days and it’s obvious. I’m sure he can feel me swelling against him. And I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. My mind clouds with want and I can feel that hard bulge in his pants and I’m dying to set it free.

He pulls away from me, panting. “Please tell me you’re coming back.”

My desire dips. “It’s - it’s complicated. Tanner’s really hurt.”

“But he’s alive?”

“Yes. But…” I stare into those eyes and I get lost in a forest of glowing emeralds, sparkling and shining just for me. Oh God, how can I ever tear myself away? How can I ever live without those eyes? His face? His strong arms around me? “Tanner lost both his legs. A grenade went off. He’s burned up real bad, too.”

“Oh my God…”

“I know. It’s bad.” I clear my throat. “So it changes some stuff.”

“Like how?”

My thoughts do somersaults in my head, trying to find a way out of this. A way to be with him all the time, everyday, and never lose him. I hold him tighter, bury my face in his neck and breathe in his scent of summertime, of rivers and trees and fresh cut grass. I can’t do this. So help me God, I can’t do this.

“Your dad’s making you stay, isn’t he?” Finny says softly and sadly. “He’ll want to keep you home and make sure you don’t get your legs blown off, too.”

I kiss his neck and if I could crawl inside him, I would. If I could attach him to me, I would.

“Right?” Finny asks. I kiss him again and again and he stops me. “Right?”

“I don’t want to stay,” I whisper. “I want to come back. But…it’s just that…”

I hit a wall there. A dead end. Just when I think there’s a clearing in all this mess, the weeds bundle up and close in. Stamped and sealed in so many ways.

“Our family doctor is going to give me an exam and tell the war department I’m not fit for service. Dad doesn’t want me to end up like Tanner. And he’s transferred my records to Tanner’s old school, St. Paul’s, so I don’t end up like Tanner. If he doesn’t want me to end up like Tanner, he’s certainly trying to make it so I will.”

“How can you not be fit for service?” Finny gestures to my feet. “Look at you. You don’t even need that cane.”

I look down. I hadn’t realized I was standing without it. “I know that. You know that. My dad even knows that, but everything in my life has always been about what Tanner does or doesn’t do. I’m like a chess piece, just pushed around on a board. What I want doesn’t mean anything.”

“And what do you want?” He asks earnestly.

“You.” I take him in my arms again. “Just you. Always you. Forever you.”

“What if,” he takes my face in his hands. “What if neither one of us went back? What if we just…took off?”

“Took off where?”

He searches my eyes, a solemnity falling upon his features. “I didn’t tell anyone about this. Not a soul. And I’ve got some money. My grandparents gave me some for Christmas and I had some saved up from last summer. We can just stay here. Or leave here and go somewhere else. It doesn’t matter to me as long as we’re together.”

I feel a shot of adrenaline race through me at the thought. The thought of running off with him and saying to hell with everything, with it all. To hell with dad and momma and Tanner. But this would be akin to betrayal if I did this without telling Althea. She’d panic if I didn’t come home and it’s her money in my pocket, given to me to get here and come right back.

And what he’d leave behind? He’s so close to graduating, to a future as a Navy Captain probably, a bright one, a happy one, and here I am just dead weight again. Here I am just this burden, this Forrester boy who never deserved him to begin with.

“I…I don’t know…,” I say. “We’re both so close to graduating. And people would look for us. My dad would hunt me down like a bloodhound. And Althea…she gave me her own money to get here today. It would hurt her if I just up and left like this.”

“My family won’t understand either, Gene, but don’t you feel this?” He lays his head against mine and I close my eyes. “This is the only thing that matters to me. Everything else is just noise. Just a bunch of pointless noise.”

And I do feel it. What’s between us is sacred. I’ve never felt this way and I’m sure I’ll never feel this way about anyone again. If I say no, it’s back to Montgomery. Back to attend St. Paul’s, looking at Tanner’s burned up face and legless body in our old Forrester house. It’s back to dad showing me off like never before and having debutantes thrown at me left and right. It’s back to a future and a life I never wanted. And here’s Finny, offering me his hand, his devotion, and to take me away from it once and for all.

“Okay,” I hear myself say. “Okay, Finny. Let’s do it.”

He kisses me and I melt into him. I turn into a minty-sage puddle in his eyes and everything, everything is right here.

_Right. Here._

* * *

We walk for hours down a highway.

I keep checking behind us as if we’re being followed, and we don’t really have a plan. Not much. My right leg starts to ache after a while so we check into a motel off the highway. It’s the flea-bag kind. The kind my mother would sooner sleep in the car than stay in. I can almost hear her saying so. The man at the front desk wears a sweat-stained shirt and smells like boiled onions. We hand him some cash and he shuffles us into a room with a broken lamp and the ashtrays still full from the last occupants.

It’s when Finny gets into the shower and I lay on the bed that my momentum slows to a stop. I look out at the darkening skies. Cora has put dinner on the table by now, and Althea is making excuses. She’s still expecting me back. She wouldn’t be in a panic just yet. And Randy might just stomp up to my room, see I’m not there, and give the whole thing away. I begin to shiver with the thought of what might happen when I don’t come back, and I’ve left my twin sister and little brother behind to bear the wrath of our father.

My selfishness could wipe out an entire village, and now I’ve added fugitive to my list of shameful superlatives. I realize right then that no matter what I do, someone will suffer in my wake. Be it my siblings, be it Finny, be it a motel owner who doesn’t do his laundry. I wonder if that man’s unfortunate contact with me will somehow jinx the rest of his days. As if me crossing his path like a black cat will set in motion the very events that cause him to walk underneath a ladder then a grand piano on a crane like in the movies and he’ll be flattened and dead and he’ll be thinking: _is this really how I go?_

I sit up just as Finny opens the bathroom door and comes out in a circle of steam, a towel wrapped around his waist. And I think that the motel man has a ray of hope because Finny crossed his path, too. He’d have to be the opposite of the black cat, which would be…what? A white dog? That man won’t die underneath the key of F, but he might trip over a violin and break his kneecap and be the cripple my father wants me to be.

“Is your leg still hurting?” Finny asks.

“No. It’s better.”

He stands before me, over me, and I think this is how it should be. Him over me. I should always be looking up at him. And if we were to sprout wings like angels and go flying up into the clouds to the pearly gates, he’d be above me, I’d be below him, I’d always be looking up into this face that I would burn bridges for. But, really, why would I grow angel’s wings when there’s a pit of fire waiting for me just below our feet? And he looks down at me, his eyes like a mystical green canopy, and if I stare long enough I’ll forget where I end and he begins.

I lean forward and kiss his stomach above the towel. His muscle jerks under my lips and I kiss him again. There’s a spot below his navel that if I kiss it enough, nibble just slightly, I can have him hard and wanting in ten seconds flat. So, a compulsion comes over me, the desire to test this out, and I take the towel off and his bare arousal in this flea-bag motel, in a place we’ve never been, in entirely different surroundings, is a hypothesis.

He’s surprised by my actions but doesn’t stop me from taking him in my mouth and I have to see, I have to know if where we are will change anything. There’s no chance of getting caught. There’s no Devon School beds or wing-backed chairs and fires. There’s just his skin, cool and damp from the shower, and the scent of soap and lush patches of earth. I feel him hesitate from tripping through this absurd doorway with me and he places both his hands on my head as if to stop me, but he doesn’t stop me, and I don’t want to stop, and soon he’s mumbling curses I’ve never heard him say, so is it the room? Is it the setting that affects how we’ll behave? Is this why people meet in seedy places to do the things they can’t in daybeds and beside curtains as old as William Howard Taft?

I pour every ounce of my concentration into it unlike ever before and soon there’s no way he’d stop me now and he can see right through my little test and I sense him playing along. And this is how it should be, him above me, and I think we’ll get to a point where we’ll either sink through a portal like this or I’ll spontaneously combust.

I put my hand over my mouth after he comes, like I’ve just revealed a secret I promised I’d never tell. I thought I was past this. Do you have to begin again when you’re somewhere new? He lays on the bed beside me, watching me with a fascination. He shouldn’t be. I curl up next to his naked body while mine sweats underneath the only clothing I have, that I wore when I told Althea I’d be back.

“Gene?” He pants. He tries to catch my eyes, but I hide my face in his neck. “Hey.” He pulls away, tries to tilt my chin up, but I hold him still. Just be still. Just be still with me.

He gives up and I think I could hide here. I could hide in his body, a stowaway, a cheat with no other means.

“You’re regretting this now,” he says slowly.

“No.” I shake my head. “Not at all. I’m just, um…I’m just…” I feel the tears springing up.

“I’m scared too, Gene.” He slips his arms around me, and I’d missed what it was like to be held by him. Even in the face of such uncertainty he’s got me. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but graduating from Devon, the Navy, it all means nothing to me if it isn’t with you.”

I reveal my face finally, brush the tears away. “Why are you so good?” His hand comes up to stroke my cheek. “And why on earth does someone as good as you want someone like me?”

He smiles slightly. “Someone like you? You mean someone that would run away with me, leave his whole family behind. Somebody who worries over his sister and jumps off of trees with me. Well, when he’s not falling off?”

I laugh weakly.

His eyes morph into green pools of reverence and I might burst into flames anyway. “And somebody who took my hand that day, kept me from falling, kept me safe. You were looking out for me. And I never forgot it.”

That just makes me cry harder. He pulls me closer and I cling to him like a life raft.

“Sometimes,” he says. “I think you’re just a dream. Just too good be true.” He kisses the top of my head. “I don’t know what I did to deserve someone like you, but I’ve got to be the luckiest fella upon this earth. I swear it.”

I kiss him deeply, because it’s the only thing I can do to keep my mouth from betraying me. I stroke and caress every inch of his skin like I might turn it into silk. I undress like it’s the first time I’ve ever been naked in front of him and I feel a warm flush all over my skin as he looks at me. Do I look different here? I want to ask out of pure vanity and reasons that could leave me as blemished and scarred as Tanner. I want so badly to hear him say I’m just as perfectly imperfect as him, which really means he’s risen above imperfections to the point where they don’t exist and I can’t ever live there with him.

It’s his turn to experiment. As he slides me into his mouth, I stare up at the ceiling, at a water stain that’s shaped like a bull and the drapes are red. And he’s so gentle and so shy, it’s like he doesn’t know and we’re two fumbling virgins exploring each other’s bodies just for kicks. I reach out to grasp something that winds up being his still-damp hair and I keep my eyes on the bull. What an unpredictable animal.

I conjure up a plea inside me for us. For motel man. For the water stain. I even say it out loud: _please. Please_ don’t let anything change. _Please_ don’t let this be the last time. _Please_ don’t let me float above with him below in some unnatural order. And his shyness melts away and he has complete control over me as if my incantation brought us back to when days and nights were ours and ours alone. So, why can’t this be ours, too? Why can’t it all belong to us here and now?

I’m not a runaway and I’m not so tough. I’d flee from a charging bull like any fool. And like muscle memory he turns me into singed flesh and bone and that’s all that was needed. Easy. So easy. I kiss him after like Narcissus would. I want to say _mine_ , but he says _ours_ and we whisper it to each other, repeatedly, bared and trembling in a flea-bag motel, under a beast, taking me into a realm I feel sure as I see it and think it and breathe it with him, that I’ll never see again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Trigger warning*  
> Parts of this chapter may be traumatic for some readers.

My eyes flutter open to sunlight.

I close my eyes quickly and fight against my consciousness. I try to pull it back so the only thing I register is my head resting on his stomach and his hand resting on the side of my face. I nuzzle into his abdomen and try to bring back dreams of low-hanging clouds and prying open oysters to find emeralds like rows of teeth. When I stir, he stirs, his fingers slipping down my face. I part my lips, moisten them with my tongue, and let his finger slide between them. It’s the imitation of an act that rouses me semi-erect and I think of all the things we could do here, undetected and unknown.

My eyes fling open.

_Here._ Here is where we are.

This place, I see it clearly now, and my eyes search the motel room. It’s so big and open and wide. I pull a blanket over us and my eyes find the window that looks out to the highway and across from that a flat meadow and across from that a mountain and across from that a row of houses probably where laundry is being hung and across from that train tracks maybe and across from that another mountain and it’s so big and open and airy that these four walls seem to fall down and open up into the surroundings and it all lays end to end tracing a path over fields and mountains and roadways and tracks to Montgomery.

My heart pounds.

It’s been one whole night. I can practically feel Althea’s panic from hundreds of miles away. And dad’s figured out I’m not home by now. I clench the covers. Word might have reached momma and Tanner at the hospital, but it’s not like either one of them would care. Not that much. And Randy. Is he upset that I’ve gone again? And this time without warning. This time without saying a single goodbye.

My eyes dart to the ceiling and the water stain looks nothing like a bull. It’s just a blob. Meaningless.

I sit up. I feel Finny’s hand on my hip, tugging. “Not yet,” he mumbles.

Althea might think something is really wrong. She might have told dad by now. He could be on his way.

“Not yet.” He repeats.

I get out of bed and look for my clothes. “We need to go.”

Finny groans out a protest and puts a pillow over his head.

“Finny, we need to go. Keep moving. My dad might be on his way up here right now.”

It might take him a while to find me once he gets to Harrisonburg. Would he stop people on the street? And if Finny won’t be anywhere today, Leper or Brinker or even Chet are bound to notice.

I coax Finny out of bed and he gets dressed. Within twenty minutes, we’ve gathered up all our things and left the open airy room and the water stain. We find a map and decide to follow the same highway north where it intersects with 340. That one will take us west.

Our stomachs are grumbling so we stop at a diner. I tell him we should find somebody that might be going our way and we can ride along. He suggests another train, but I tell him the train stations are full of conductors and ticket-takers that would remember us if someone came asking. We stand outside the diner for an hour, asking for a ride, offer some cash, but no one is interested.

So we walk.

And despite the fact that I’m not as reliant on my cane, walking so much isn’t easy for me. We have to stop to rest a lot. I apologize to him over and over and he tells me there’s nothing to be sorry about over and over. Around lunchtime, just as we’re approaching 340, a truck hauling lumber stops beside us. The guy tells us he’ll take us as far as Charleston, so we climb in the back, and ride down 340 with the scent of fresh cut wood and chips of bark flying in the back window.

I doze from time to time and try to think of this as an adventure rather than escaping. Rather than leaving my troubles for others to deal with while I get what I want. I make a mental note to send a letter to Althea as soon as we get to Charleston. _I couldn’t help it_ , I’ll say. _Can’t you understand that? I love him. Wouldn’t you do the same thing for her?_

The guy driving - who says to call him Lyle - asks a few questions, but doesn’t seem all that interested in why two sixteen year old boys are needing a lift. Lyle offers us each an apple he says he picked fresh that morning even though it’s not apple season yet. I eat mine all the way to the core and toss it out the window. Lyle pours us some coffee from a thermos and we gladly take it. The caffeine wakes up my senses and sign posts blur past, suggesting the West Virginia border is coming up fast.

“I bet they’ve called my parents by now,” Finny whispers to me.

“Maybe not,” I whisper back. “They might just think you’re sick or something.”

“I just hope Tabitha doesn’t take it too hard.” He slumps down beside me. “She gets upset so easy.”

I think about Randy and his fits and slump down next to him. It’s Sunday, so if Althea was able to keep quiet last night, then dad would’ve only found out just this morning. He would’ve gone to the train station first to ask around. I bet he even called the Sheriff and took him out of Sunday service for his help. Sheriff Walters has been managing the Montgomery PD since Tanner was a baby. I’ve never met him in person, but he and his wife sent some flowers to Tanner’s room shortly after the surgeries. His son ran track with my brother and Tanner was always welcome in their house. I doubt Sheriff Walters even knew I existed.

I wish for that kind of existence now. I almost wish everyone would just shrug their shoulders and move on. Let me do this. Let me go and let me be. Let me be with Finny, and I swear I’ll never want for anything else.

When we get to Charleston, Lyle drops us off at a filling station, refuses our money, and offers us some cash instead.

“Call your mommas,” he says out the window. “It ain’t none of my business either way, but do yourselves a favor and call your mommas. It’s a cold hard world out here, boys.” And like that, Lyle and his lumber drives off. I hear a train whistle in the distance and my insides feel hollowed out.

“What should we do now?” I ask. Mostly to myself.

“We have enough for another room,” Finny replies. “Maybe we could hide out for a couple of days.”

I say we should keep moving, but I’m too worn to press the issue, so we find another motel just as flea-baggy or worse than the last place. The bed is tiny and smells like a wet dog, but I fall into it as if it’s pure luxury and Finny collapses beside me.

“We’ll need some food,” he says.

“And clothes. This is all I have.” I tug at my sleeve.

“You can wear mine. But yeah, we’ll need clothes, too.”

As we lay there the seriousness of what we’ve done settles over me. I feel like I can hear a distant explosion coming all the way from Montgomery. My dad blowing his top. Hoards of Montgomery PD pouring into the train station. I think about gangster movies with cops hanging off the sides of paddy wagons, sirens wailing, and dark alleys. I close my eyes and the soft weight of Finny’s head on my chest provides immediate solace.

Maybe this will make dad change his mind. He’ll see how easy he can lose me if I’m forced into a life I don’t want. Into a school I don’t want. Into watching other guys my age march off to war while I waste away in our big Forrester house like some loafing fool. This might show him exactly what I’d do.

“I hope you don’t hate me for this someday,” Finny says quietly.

I turn my head to look at him.

“I know what you’re leaving behind to be with me. I just don’t want you to hate me for it.”

“I’m here because I want to be, Finny.”

“Maybe I’m being selfish.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing myself.” I turn on my side and he turns to face me. “But I don’t want to be anywhere else but right here. And if we’re wrong for this, then I guess we’re wrong.”

“Doing the right thing in our circumstances seems like the wrong thing.” He bites his lip. “My mind gets so tangled when I think about it, and why everything had to happen like this. Why couldn’t it have been easier?”

I think about that for a minute. There’s a million different ways this could have gone. I could have admitted my feelings for him long before I actually did. I could have ignored him from the start, stuck to myself, and never followed him up any trees at all. And, of course, I could’ve knocked him out that day, hurt him, killed him, and where would we be then? Certainly not in a flea-bag motel in Charleston, West Virginia acting like two convicts on the lam, hiding out, undercover. The thought of that possibility conjures up a deep-seated pain inside me. That “accident” that was really a ploy to make sure he never surpassed me. And yet he does. I think even if he’d wound up hurt that day, he would’ve surpassed me anyway. I would’ve been indebted to him for life.

“I worry sometimes that you might hate me,” I say. “Because sometimes an accident isn’t really an accident.”

His brows furrow.

I shift my eyes between each of his. “What if you’d fallen that day instead of me?”

“I suppose I would have broken something, like you.”

“Would you have been angry with me?”

He grins. “No. That’s why they’re called ‘accidents.’”

I swallow and try to think of the right words but there are none. “What if it wasn’t an accident?”

His grin fades. “What do you mean?”

This is where, when you’ve gone out for an evening stroll, you turn around at the bad part of town and retrace your steps. This is where you heed the “beware” signs and cracked sidewalks and broken windows. But, probably because I’m stupid and selfish, probably because I’m destined to do stupid and selfish things forever, I forge on ahead and prepare myself for the drunk with a switchblade.

I turn on my other side so I don’t have to look him in the eye. I stare at the tattered coral chair in the corner and let that absorb the darkest secrets in my heart. “I didn’t feel this way then. Or maybe I did and I didn’t want to or didn’t realize it. So, on the tree that day I thought…I thought I might…it’s just that I thought you were trying to be better than me. At everything. Get better grades and in sports too and, honestly, I wasn’t better than you in sports and I never would have been. But the academics part was what I had, and I was afraid you were going to take that from me. So…,” I swallow and it feels like a stone. “I don’t know what I thought would happen. I just. I shook the limb before you jumped, but instead of you losing your footing, it was me.”

He’s as silent as a tomb.

I hurriedly continue. “But I deserved it, Finny. I completely deserved it, and it brought us together, and I guess it must have knocked some sense into me, too. I love you so much now, and I feel like absolute shit for what I almost did to you. And, really, I’ll never be as good as you. My family, we’re…I think it’s some kind of curse. We’re just bad people and it keeps getting passed down and down and down again. But I don’t want to be like that. I want to be with you. For the rest of my life. And if you hate me now, I’ll do anything to make up for it. I’d fall off another tree. Break both my legs. Both my arms. My neck. All for you.”

I hadn’t realized how wet my cheeks were. I wipe my eyes with my sleeve and brace myself. Finny doesn’t say a word. I don’t even think I can hear him breathing.

“It’s different now,” I plead. “And I can’t blame you for hating me or thinking this whole thing was a mistake. I guess I’d deserve that, too.”

I let the thought of that settle into my bones and get comfortable. Now that it’s out there, now that he’s heard it and knows, it’s left my body like a tumor and I feel empty on the inside. It was as if that ugly tumor gave me substance.

I feel him shift beside me, his voice no louder than the passing of cars from a distant highway. “Why does it have to be deserving and undeserving? Like everything is either punishment or reward?”

I wipe my eyes again. “Because it is. Otherwise nothing would make sense.”

“But bad people have good things happen to them. And good people have bad things happen to them. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not good and, trust me, I get what I deserve.”

He tries to turn me so I’ll face him and I refuse, so he presses his chest to my back, his arms coming around me, his voice like a distant wind in my ear. “You’re good to me always, Gene.”

Something inside me tears in two and I think: no. No. This isn’t how he should react. He should be getting up, getting away from me, cursing me, shouting, crying, hating. Him above me and me below him, and I suddenly crave his wrath. I want his anger, his hurt, his rage. _Hate me, hate me, hate me_. Because if he doesn’t then it’s like I’m getting away with something, and I’m a Forrester boy that shouldn’t get away with shit.

I push away from him. “You don’t really mean that. It’s terrible what I did, Finny. I could’ve - oh, God - I could’ve killed you!” I start to sob and I’m too distraught to be embarrassed.

He doesn’t let me go. “We all do stupid things, Gene.”

I can’t stand it. I get out of the bed and go to the door. I have to get away from him. Why won’t he just yell at me or something? Why can’t he just curse my name for all time and leave me here? But he comes over and stops me, stands behind me, wraps his arms around me the way he did in Ludsbury’s study.

I try to pull away from him. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

He holds me tighter. “I love you, Gene.”

“Please, Finny.” I can’t get away from him. I can’t get away from his goodness, his love, it surrounds me.

“I love you,” he whispers. “And you are good, Gene. Always.”

We sink down to the floor in a synchronized motion, my arm hangs from the doorknob, and I can’t stop the tears from flowing and it feels like I’m being drained and all he can do is hold me against him, hold me in his arms, in his gaze, and say over and over, “You are good. You are good. _You are good._ ”

* * *

There’s a market down the street.

Finny leaves and comes back with some food. We eat vegetables out of cans, and I make a dumb remark about us being just one step closer to hobos. We didn’t plan this out. It was spur of the moment and it’s only a matter of time now. Someone’s going to find us. It becomes an unspoken agreement: this is where it ends. Could be hours or days, but here’s where it ends. We don’t have enough cash, and there’s a better way to do this. Someday.

So, now we just wait.

“As soon as graduation is over,” Finny says. “I’m coming for you. I’ll take a train straight to Montgomery that day.”

“I should come up to Boston. I can work for Mr. Pingwell after school. Save some money. My dad won’t let me out of his sight for a while, but if I just do what he says eventually he’ll let up.”

“What’s he going to do to you?”

“Yell at me. Probably won’t let me leave the house except to go to school and even then I’m sure he’ll pay some teachers to keep an eye on me.”

“They could kick me out of Devon for this. Might be good. Less of a financial burden for my parents.”

“Then where would you go?”

He shrugs.

We discuss all the potential consequences that await us. One thing’s for sure - I’ll be hauled back to Montgomery, to my roots, the place of my birth, and squeezed into the role Tanner can no longer fill. But I’ll be eighteen soon enough and if Finny and I can just hold out, hold on for that time, I can take off in the middle of the night, with plenty of money, with a plan, and with him.

I stand in the shower under a weak jet of water and he stands with me. I almost wish someone would kick down that door and find us like this, naked and in each other’s arms. So what? Who cares. Let them find us exactly like this and let them try to get me away from him. They’d have to saw off my arms. And I’m completely uncovered before him now. There’s no more words unspoken, no more secrets, and no more badness to hide. He lets me make love to him and I can’t believe how much he trusts me, how much he can give to me after all I’ve said. Does he want my badness inside him as much as I want his goodness inside me? I want to hold his trust in my hands, cradle it there, keep it warm and living and breathing. The most precious thing I’ll ever hold; the antidote to my poison.

I keep my eyes open. I want to see everything. This could be the very last time. So, we make love as if it is; as if what’s standing between us right now and a big wide canyon of forever and no more is this night where our bodies are joined and our eyes are wide open, seeing and creating a vision for when that big wide void gets to be too much.

And I think deep inside that void I’d hear his voice echo: _you are good, you are good, you are good._

* * *

It happens just 36 hours later.

A knock, knock, knock at the door. We’ve lain in bed as if we’re awaiting death, kept the shades drawn, and our voices soft. The only thing missing is the organ. We knew it was coming and we were ready. But couldn’t they have given us just one more day? One more sunset and sunrise to call our own. One more whisper in the darkness of love and forever. One more. Just one more.

_Knock, knock._ Louder now.

I look at him. He looks at me. He gets out of bed, but I pull him back to kiss him once more. Just one more. It’ll be the last one for a long time. He caresses my cheek gently, a quiet intelligence beaming from his eyes. I think of all the seconds that passed with him in my arms and shouldn’t I have kept count of each one? Given each one a number and a name to claim as ours.

_Ours._ I say it like an oath.

_Ours._ He repeats it like a vow.

He opens the door.

The sunlight comes in and I’m blinded.

* * *

Mercifully, or maybe just to unnerve me, my father waits until we’re back home.

Sheriff Walters called state troopers in Virginia to be on the lookout. I thought it was either Lyle or the sweat-stained motel guy that gave us away. Turned out it was someone at that diner. They pointed in the direction where we’d gone and soon dad was barreling down the doors of the West Virginia State Police, threatening all sorts of awfulness to rain down on them if they didn’t knock on every door right this instant.

Finny and I were separated in seconds, my father simmering under the surface, casting murderous glances Finny’s way, and the last thing I saw before he was out of sight for good was a state trooper pull out a pen and notepad to ask him his name. I don’t know yet if he’ll be taken back to Devon or Boston. I plan to send letters to both as soon as I’m back.

It’s nearly one in the morning when we walk through the front door. There’s a light on in the library and dad takes his time, his breath heaving, he removes his coat, flings his keys on the entry table and shoves me into the library and I fall onto the divan that’s been here since the Industrial Revolution.

Although I’m terrified, I force myself to scowl right back at him. Never in my life have I behaved this way. Never have I been so disobedient, so reckless. It’s one of my defenses. And what does he expect out of his sixteen, almost seventeen, year old son anyway? Tanner was no angel himself, and I catch the outline of his bandaged face laying on the cot in the parlor. Exactly where I’d been just a few short months ago. I don’t have time to process the irony.

“Who was that boy with you?” My father growls.

I set my jaw.

My father takes a step towards me, and I try not to flinch. “Answer me.”

I don’t.

In one swift motion, his fist comes up and crashes into my nose. A sprinkle of stars split open before my eyes and hot tears spill down my cheeks before I can even blink. I clutch my face and catch Tanner’s one uncovered eye watching us, watching me.

“You got a lotta nerve!” My father roars. “You got a lotta nerve, you little shit, running out on your momma and me! And at a time like this! I oughtta tan your hide!”

I try to keep my breath steady. I don’t make a sound although I want to yelp with pain. I feel a trickle of warmth over my lips and taste the metallic tang of blood. I stare into Tanner’s one cold eye and he stares back.

“You listen to me.” Dad gets real close, right in my ear, like the hiss of a snake. “I’ll break both your legs, so help me God, if you even _think_ about doing that again! I don’t know what ideas that boy put into your head but I swear if I see him ever again I’ll break his legs, too! And I’m gonna take your sorry ass to St. Paul’s in the morning and I’ll be there to get you in the afternoons! And you are not to set foot outside these four walls unless it’s with me or your momma! You understand me, Eugene? Not a foot, not a breath, not a finger outside that door!”

I blink. Tanner blinks. Strangely enough, it’s his stare that keeps me from bawling like a child.

Dad grabs my face and yanks it towards him. I whimper in pain. “I ain’t gonna have no son of mine behavin’ like some hoodlum! You’re gonna do as I say or else I’ll haul your ass to the Nazis myself and they can cage you like a dog!”

I nod my head, quickly, so he’ll let go of me. He grabs a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at the sweat on his forehead. “Get up to your room, Eugene.”

I feel dizzy. I grasp around for my cane and realize it’s gone. Did I leave it behind?

“Go on!” He bellows. “Go on and get now!”

I scramble up from the divan and up the stairs. My knee is aching and my face feels like it was split open. I tenderly touch my nose and feel it isn’t broken. I wipe the blood away with the corner of the sheets and sit still in the darkness for a while. I can’t stop shaking. I can’t stop rocking back and forth. I can’t stop tasting blood. I just can’t.

The door to my bedroom opens and Althea’s there in her nightgown and rag curls tied around her head. She gingerly steps over to my bed and sits in front of me, her eyes like two gray stones.

“Please don’t.” I whisper to her. “I know what I did. Just please don’t.”

Her face softens. Her fingers come up to my nose, and I wince with pain. She leaves and comes back with some cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. I try not to swear over how much it stings. With the blood all cleaned up, she lays me back and lays down beside me. There’s a clock ticking somewhere in my room. The house settles down. I can almost feel the eyes of my ancestors upon me, curious and triumphant.

“Gene,” she begins.

“You would’ve done the same for her,” I interrupt. “Don’t tell me any different. Nothing would have stopped you.”

In the darkness, I see her expression change as she considers this. Then she wraps me up in a hug and I hug her back, little drops of my blood and my tears getting on her frilly nightgown.

We’re trapped. The both of us. I might as well be a dog in a cage.

* * *

Dad keeps his word.

He takes me to St. Paul’s every morning at eight o’clock sharp and he’s there waiting for me at three. It was too late in the semester to move into a dormitory and I overheard a phone call with the headmaster over whether or not I can just be a day student for the remainder of my studies. And St. Paul’s is on a different time table. I won’t graduate the same time Finny does. This doesn’t seem to matter to anyone. That wasn’t the point after all.

Horse Shit Hands Richie is in one of my classes, of all people. He asks about my busted up nose and I make something up. What the living hell, Forrester? I thought you broke your leg, he says. I say that I did. I say I guess I’m just a klutz. He laughs and I want so badly to bust up his nose. And that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone either. Momma glares at me and slurs out a lecture every morning at breakfast, saying the same things over and over again about being some vagrant and what a thing to do when my brother nearly lost his life. I ought to be more like him, she says. I ought to be grateful to have such a home to come to, such a great family’s blood in my veins, and Tanner would’ve never done such a thing. No sir. Tanner has sacrificed his life and nearly lost it and he doesn’t behave like this and here he is with no legs and a burned up face and doesn’t cause trouble. Whatever is the matter with you, Eugene?

And Tanner sits there in a wheelchair, the legs of his pants folded up, his wrecked face bandaged, and doesn’t speak at all. His one blue-gray eye finds mine and bores a hole right through me. They’ll be taking him to Atlanta in a month. He’ll get a special chair, see a special surgeon to fix his face, and dad calls some contractors about getting a ramp for his wheelchair. We’re two Forrester boys who’ve been to battle in two different wars.

Dad demands Althea bring him the mail each day. He looks for anything addressed to me and Althea finds me in my room later and takes a letter from Finny from her brassiere. She hides mine to him in there, too. She’s a clever one. She tells me it’s how she was able to write Bridget without momma or dad knowing anything about her. She’s learned to work within the boundaries set for us. And here I was trying to break them down.

But I do as I’m told. I toe the line. I let Dr. Tellison poke and prod my right leg and I don’t protest when he nods sternly and says he’s afraid it’s just as he thought. He fears, Mr. Forrester, that Eugene is unfit for service. I’m afraid your son will be crippled for life. Dad plays along, a regretful nod, and I march out of the room on my feet without a single limp.

I sit in the library one afternoon, working through some trigonometry I already worked through at Devon. I fold open a letter from Finny inside my book. He didn’t get into nearly as much trouble as me. Or so he says. I can see him talking his way out of it. I can see him explaining to Ludsbury or his parents that he just wanted to take a trip because it would be sensational. And then he got lost and he’s so sorry over the trouble he caused. He didn’t mean to worry anyone. God, to be there during that conversation. I’d be dripping with admiration and awe at the way he can do these things.

He swears he won’t join the Navy. He swears he’ll come to Montgomery as soon as he’s a graduate. I know he’ll try at least. But an athlete like him will get snatched up by Uncle Sam real quick. I try to reign in my thoughts and keep them from running loose with the possibilities of what would happen to us then. I keep a calendar. I mark off days. I hope.

Tanner wheels himself into the library and over to the window. Exactly where I used to sit. He looks over at me and out at the crepe myrtles. I wonder if he still wants them all cut down.

“Your nose looks like hell,” he says.

I hide Finny’s letter and get back to work.

“Dad clobbered me good when I was about your age.” His voice doesn’t even sound the same. It’s clotted like cream. “I don’t remember over what really. I was sassin’ him over something or other, and he made sure I never did it again. I never crossed him after that, I tell you what.”

“I thought you were supposed to be perfect,” I mutter.

He turns to me and there’s a scowl hidden in his screwed up face. “Look at me.”

I look down at my notebook and pencil.

He wheels over to the desk and bumps it. “I said, look at me, Gene. Take a good look.”

And so I do. Momma’s had to sew up all his pants to fit him. His right arm has a few scars, but his face is the most shocking of all. He was handsome. So much better looking than I could ever hope for. And he’s ugly now. It’s true. He could play a swamp creature in a film.

“Don’t you sit there and act like this ain’t a dream come true for you,” he snarls.

“You don’t know nothing about my dreams,” I growl.

“I know you’re a little brat. Runnin’ off when they were about to bring me home ‘cause you can’t stand it if it ain’t about you. You never could. Always beggin’ for attention like a scoundrel.”

I can’t believe his audacity. I set down my pencil and stand up, caneless and tall, looming over him, and I hope he feels the way I used to. “It’s not all about _you_ , Tanner! Nothing I do or have ever done has been about you! I ran off because I don’t want this!” I gesture around us. “You’re the only one of us that ever did!”

His chapped lips start to quiver. “Why don’t you just say it? Say you’re glad I’m like this. Say you wanted this all along.”

I gear up for a comeback, something good, something to shut him up, but all the fight leaves me like a ghost. It floats away and sinks into these walls to join all the dead Forresters who lived for duty and family and proper society.

“I don’t want to be like this with you,” I say softly. “I’m sick of it.”

For a second, his one exposed eye fades, the intensity falters. It scans me from head to toe, then hardens into an iceberg. “You know better than that, Gene.” He clenches his teeth. “You know there ain’t no other way we’re supposed to be.”

He wheels out of the library and I sit back down.

I open my book.

I get back to work.


	14. Chapter 14

I have my moments.

If I squint my eyes until they’re nearly closed, I can peer through my lashes and the campus of St. Paul’s transforms. The dogwoods turn into maples. Long-needled pines turn into spruces. The blue and silver of St. Paul’s becomes the red and blue of Devon. The voices around me become familiar; accents flatten into that peculiar Northern vernacular that I always thought sounded so odd and foreign, particularly when I first spoke to Finny and his Boston vowels irritated me. And I think, through the footsteps on the sidewalks, within the bell ringing from the chapel, and between the voices of the fellas around me, I can hear him.

_Hey Gene!_

He’s going to run up to me with those eyes as electric and perfect as a sunny grove. He’s going to take my elbow and help me walk. He’s going to take me back to our room, press me against the door, and kiss me until I’m out of breath and I’m going to hold onto him like he’s the anchor and I’m the wayward vessel.

“Gene! Hey Gene!”

God, I can almost hear him. I can hear him saying how _sensational_ it will be to come back to our room this evening, be alone, be -

“Gene!”

My eyes open and I see that I’m sitting on a bench under the dogwoods and behind the walnut trees that have stood in St. Paul’s outer courtyard since Jefferson Davis was inaugurated and soon abandoned Montgomery for Richmond. I’m wearing my blue and silver St. Paul’s tie, the colors chosen as some symbolization of the ridges and rivers that carved out this area at its very beginnings. And the voice calling for me bends and twangs in a lower Carolinian dialect that can only come from -

“Gene!”

In my periphery, I see Horse Shit Hands Richie and Gil Upton are walking over to me. I feel myself shrink on the inside.

“Geez Louise, Forrester,” Richie says. “Been calling for you for like five minutes. Don’t tell me you gone and broke your ear drums now.”

“Sorry,” I reply. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

Richie hasn’t even made it all the way over to me yet. You can tell the Camdens descended from people who moved slow. They hail from Charleston and I can imagine his greats sitting on sweltering porches, fanning themselves, taking leisurely strolls through cotton and tobacco fields, and as smooth as molasses, undressing by firelight, preparing to create more Camden sons to protect their paternalistic institutions.

Gil stands over me while Richie joins him and I place my books on either side of me, hoping they get the hint.

Gil grins down at me. “How you been, Gene? Richie told me you were back. I reckon those Yanks got rather tiresome for you.”

I haven’t seen Gil Upton in years. Tall, lanky, and square-jawed, he’s been a background feature in most social gatherings I’ve been to since I was a child. We were even both Boy Scouts, briefly, when my mother forced me. He’s unremarkable other than he’s an Upton and has that Upton widow’s peak. Not to mention, Uptons and Forresters have had bad blood between us ever since Erastus Upton and Rufus Forrester each had a piece of property that the C&O Railroad wanted to build tracks through. At first, it was an underhanded, backstabbing game where one tried to convince the railroad to build on the other’s land. But once they found out how much C&O was willing to pay, they climbed all over each other to persuade them. It ended up C&O took their negotiations elsewhere, but not before Erastus cut down all of Rufus’ trees and Rufus let all of Erastus’ cows loose and some hunters in Selma mistook them for deer.

Uptons and Forresters have had some other run-ins since then, but we’ve maintained polite conversations with one another and even managed a few marriages, but the stories of the atrocities that Erastus and Rufus committed against one another surface from time to time. I wonder if I should perhaps tell Gil to take his comments to the C&O Railroad, but the way he’s grinning I doubt he knows or cares about the history.

“Say, I thought you broke your leg,” Gil says. “And what happened to your nose? Richie told me you were bedridden for like six months.”

I flash Richie a look and glance at Gil. “I fell down some steps a couple weeks ago.” I gingerly touch my nose. “And I did break my leg. It’s all healed up now, but,” I pause as my voice has become as graceful as a frog, “it seems it was a pretty bad break after all.” I purse my lips. “Won’t be able to enlist.”

“You lucky dog,” Gil remarks. “I ought to get my arm broken or something. Last thing I wanna do is tangle with some Japs.”

“The hell’s the matter with you?” Richie says. “I can’t wait to join up. I’ll be eighteen in seven weeks.”

Gil looks him up and down. “Is that all?”

Richie glares back and looks at me. “So, what happened at that school up yonder? Did you get kicked out or something?”

I’m surprised they’re even interested. I’m not the first, and certainly will never be the last, Montgomery boy sent up North for school. It’s become some unofficial joke, knowledge gleaned through cotillions, Boy Scout meetings, and at church picnics - the further North a Montgomery boy is sent, the less important he is to his family. It’s exactly 1,327 miles from Alabama to New Hampshire. That should tell you something.

But that was before.

_Before._ There was a _before_ and it seems so distant now. Like I dreamed the whole thing up.

“I didn’t get kicked out,” I say flatly. “My dad thought it would be better if I was here to help take care of my brother.”

“Oh, I heard about that,” Gil says, shaking his head. “And I was mighty sorry to hear it, too. Makes you wonder if it’s all worth it when our fellas are coming home in such a sorry state.” Gil tilts his head and looks at me gentle-like. “I’m real sorry about Tanner, Gene.”

I’m surprised Gil even knows his name. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Me too,” Richie says, looking around like he’s bored with this now and wants to go.

“Say, I bet we could all use some cheering up,” Gil says. He lays a hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you come out with us this weekend? That new Carey Grant is playing at The Palace.”

I gather up my books and stand up. “I can’t really. I’ve got an exam next week.”

Richie shakes his head and looks at Gil. “See? Same ol’ Gene.”

I’m struck with the overwhelming desire to grab Horse Shit Hands Richie by his St. Paul’s tie, drag him up the administration building’s steps, and push him down. The thought of him rolling and rolling and rolling to a bruised and battered stop at the bottom is so satisfying that it frightens me.

“Same nothing,” Gil grins and I notice his teeth are all straightened out. They used to be scraggly when we were kids. It’s another Upton trait. “He’ll come out with us. Surely those Yanks taught him how to have some fun.”

There’s a certain beat in how he says it. In a way that’s not all together teasing nor serious. Before I can reply, however, he and Richie give me their goodbyes and walk off towards the dorms. There’s a part of me that wants to call after them and say I’ll join them. But I remember my place, my cage, and I turn to go ride home with my jailer.

* * *

Finny occasionally finds a way to call me.

He doesn’t have many choices at Devon, so sometimes he’ll go into town and find a phone booth. The problem is we have to get the timing right. Cora has to be out of the kitchen and dad out of the house, which usually doesn’t happen until after dinner and I never know if dad will leave or stay home. And sometimes momma ties up the phone line to fuss with Aunt Faye or pretend she’s still interested in her Ladies’ Reading Guild. Luckily, however, she spends most of her time worrying over Tanner and driving him crazy.

It leaves us a tiny window of opportunity and sometimes we get it right. We don’t even talk the whole time. Sometimes we just sit there and speak to each other in other ways, in the way words can’t do, and it’s the strangest thing to know precisely what he’s thinking without even seeing him. To know that when my finger traces the receiver like it’s his lips, he’s doing the exact same thing. To know that if I close my eyes, he’s closing his, and imagining that faraway breath across a phone line is real and warm upon my cheek. Then I go upstairs to my room and shut the door and sob into my pillow and I hate my father and I hate everything and I feel like I’m dying. Bit by bit. Slow and painful. And I’m such a sap. I’m a sap for him. Always. 4ever.

And I don’t think he’s told me half of what he’s been going through up there. He says everything’s fine, he’ll graduate on time, he’ll go home to Boston and tell his parents he’s coming to Montgomery to be with me. And what’s he going to do down here? He could attend Faulkner or Huntingdon, but there’s no way he won’t get drafted; sooner rather than later. He wrote me that Leper has already joined up, and Brinker’s soon to do it, too. And I’m an “official” cripple. Practically as useless as Tanner. And that hasn’t hurt my prospects with the debutantes in the least.

Now that I’m home, dad’s invited some of the other great families over for dinner and makes sure they bring their daughters. I’ve sat in hostile silence with Virginia Bowling; awkwardly avoided a goodnight kiss with Priscilla Wainwright; walked through the crepe myrtles with Carole Farrington; and listened to a radio show with Helen Lowery. Marianne Sherwood, Mayor Sherwood’s daughter, will be making a visit next week. I’ve got half a mind to take each one to the side and tell them I’m in love and it will never be with them. They’ll be better off with someone else. Not me. It can’t possibly be me.

But it is.

It’s me now.

And I think it may actually kill me.

At dinner that night we dine with the Pingwells.

Mr. Pingwell and his wife sit opposite of Althea and Randy, and politely nod their heads and smile in unison like a couple of prairie dogs. Except Mr. Pingwell looks like a cartoon owl. The frames of his spectacles are perfectly round and make his eyes appear bigger than they are. His hair comes to an almost perfect point on his forehead and the way he scrunches up his lips as he listens to my father’s boasting, it looks like a beak.

Mrs. Pingwell reminds me of a muffin. Her tawny hair is piled on her head in such a shape it looks like it should be covered in nuts and raisins. The ruffles on her sheer yellow dress bob each time she moves her head or uses her knife. Her fingernails are painted an odd shade of red, like a rusty sort of red, and it makes her hands look anemic.

Then there’s Polly. I don’t know what kind of perfume she’s wearing, but it makes me nauseous. Her hands are as anemic-looking as her mother’s and her eyes are as owlish as her father’s. One part muffin and one part owl, just picture that. She sits in between Althea and I and Althea does her best to be distracting, God bless her soul. It works part of the time. Althea comments on Polly’s taffeta dress and how before the war none of them would have been caught dead having dinner in taffeta, but here we all have to make such sacrifices. Oh yes, Polly agrees, you can’t get chiffon these days if you offered to sell your soul. Even her daddy can’t work his Pingwell magic and make silk appear out of thin air.

This leads to a conversation about nylon and leather and soon everyone is chiming in on what they missed before the war. Everyone except me. I chance a look at Tanner and his face is screwed up with contempt. He looks from me to Polly and I recall this is what it was like for him before. I remember Iris Bradley and Devona Turpin hanging all over his arms before he went to boot camp. But Devona Turpin ran off with an Admiral from Mobile and Iris Bradley married a Bowling boy and raises their two sons on a sprawling estate in Tuscaloosa County. They wouldn’t recognize him now. They wouldn’t want a thing to do with him now.

And this conversation is all sorts of ridiculous to him, I can see. I can tell he’s dying to say how he certainly misses having his legs before the war. He certainly misses having his place in this Forrester family. _His_ place, you see, and it only became his because of some lottery. Some before-birth mumbo-jumbo, and perhaps the God of Genesis is so fed up with our nonsense, He has no choice but to send us to our earthly chains in no particular order. And that order, that randomness, is the reason we are here right now. I clench my fists under the table. And what do all these traditions really mean? What’s the point of it all? What’s the point in sending a man into battle and not letting him go with the angels, and instead leave him in parts and as ugly as sin?

I chime in and change the subject. Loudly. I blurt out something. Anything. I think I literally say, _anything._

Everyone turns to stare.

Polly nudges me and says it’s not polite to interrupt your mother. And rather than nudge her back, knock her off the damn chair in a stroke of madness and meanness I don’t want to reveal, I turn to my mother. “I’m very sorry for the interruption.”

“It’s all right, Eugene,” she replies, her eyes getting bloodshot by the second. She turns to Tanner and straightens the napkin tucked into his collar. I see his jaw working, a vein appearing in his temple.

I feel a spark of something, a jolt. “Please forgive me, mother. It won’t happen again.”

“I said it was all right.” She shakes her head and Tanner snarls at me from behind his bandage.

The spark begins to ignite. I stand. “I deeply regret the interruption, mother.”

Everyone’s looking at me now. My father sets his fork down. “I reckon she’s got the point, Eugene. Now sit on down.”

It’s like something else takes me over. Like I become an observer from the corner as the something else slips on my skin. “But I’m sorry! I just wanted to say that I’m sorry!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Randy drop his dinner roll on the floor and he dives under the table to get it. Tanner stares down at the table, his expression gone blank. Owl and Muffin do a prairie dog blink, spoons poised over a bowl of beef stew.

My mother’s mouth hangs open a second. A nervous hand comes up to her throat. “I know you’re sorry, darlin. My goodness, you ain’t got to shout.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Sit down, Eugene,” my father growls.

“I’m sorry!”

“Please sit down, Gene,” Polly says.

“I’m sorry!!”

“Sit _down_!” My father orders.

“I’m _sorry_!”

I feel Althea tugging on my arm.

I grab the side of the table, lean over, and shout: “I’M SORRY!”

Then everything gets blurry, and I feel Althea pulling me into the parlor. She tugs me, one-armed, until I’m against the mantle and she stares at me, her eyes wide. “Gene?”

The something else leaves me then, but it’s sudden and I’m left wholly rather than in parts because I got to keep all of my parts and I stare into her wide eyes until they begin to smudge and run like watercolors and I think I’m going to fall down, my right leg is going to give out like old time sakes but I’m suspended until I sense Althea has her arms around me and I’m still, still, still.

She holds me there, upright, still and static, until the watercolors stop running and my eyes become as dry as nylon and leather.

* * *

I lay on my bed like a starfish.

I can hear the Pingwell’s car starting up and backing out of the driveway. I think I may have actually damaged any future relationship with Polly beyond repair. Owl and Muffin promptly pushed Polly to the door after my outburst and I could hear her saying she’d come back tomorrow with some chicken soup seeing as how I was awful sick.

She might, she might not, and it doesn’t matter. I’m awful sick.

Althea comes into my room and stands over me. “Open your mouth.”

“Wh -?” Before I can finish, she sticks a thermometer under my tongue.

“I told daddy it felt like you had a fever,” she says, hand on one hip. “Even if you don’t, I’m gonna make sure you do.”

“Mmm?” I try to speak, but she stops me.

“Keep your mouth closed.” She sighs. “I’d ask what got into you, but I know better by now.”

I grunt and she pulls the thermometer from my mouth and reads it. “Not enough.” She rubs her palms together, quickly, then sticks the thermometer in between them. “Listen. Don’t say a word, just listen. I know you’re in pain and I know you miss him, but outbursts like this and running away won’t help anything. I know how it feels when phone calls and letters aren’t enough. I really do, Gene. It’s all we’ve got, but remember this: it’s all temporary. Everything is temporary. Everything. The good, the bad, the missing someone, it won’t last forever. One day you won’t be feeling this anymore. It helps to think about that.” She opens her hands and looks at the thermometer. “One hundred and one. That ought to do it.” She turns to go.

“Wait a minute,” I call after her.

“I got to show him this before it goes down. Now get under the covers and look pitiful.” She gives me a quick wink and she’s out the door.

I gape at the closed door for a few seconds, then I lay back and press the heels of my hands into my eyes so hard I see glowy little star shapes everywhere. I wish for whatever took me over to come back and take me over through the temporariness of 1,327 miles apart. Of school halls, chapels, and of Uptons and Camdens and Bowlings in the dining hall, watching me walk past them, sitting alone, and they think I’m so stuck up. I’ve come back home a Yankee snob. That’s what they say. Maybe. I haven’t actually heard what they say.

I get under the covers and pull them up to my chin.

I lay a hand over my forehead and wait.

I’m awful sick.

* * *

Althea’s middle name is June, because we were supposed to be born in June.

But we were early. It’s possible momma had her dates wrong, or the fact that we were twins caused it. Either way, we were born just two days before Easter. I don’t know if it was out of shock or defiance that my mother chose to keep Althea’s middle name. I guess Althea April doesn’t sound as nice.

It was our Aunt Faye that first suggested my mother was having such a difficult time and was so enormous because she was carrying twins. _Oh, you should have seen her!_ Aunt Faye would laugh. _Leticia was as big as a house. Had to turn her this way and that to get her through the door!_ My mother swore at her and grumbled and told her to hush. Twins! Why she’d never! They don’t even run in the family! And they do every couple of generations. Great-Grandpa Forrester was a twin, in fact, but his died in the womb. And somewhere way back in the DuBois line two sisters each had a set of twin girls. And since I was last, wholly unexpected, destined to throw off the gender balance until Randy came along, I was named Eugene David. Two family names, because I guess I wasn’t so special. I was a “there’s one more in there, you’re not done yet,” which was apparently the doctor’s exact words.

So, Aunt Faye was right and my mother has always hated her for it. I think it’s why they don’t get along. It was like Aunt Faye made it happen somehow. And every year on our birthday, no matter how much my mother complains, Aunt Faye comes down with Grandma DuBois and her cigarettes and lacy gloves and a whole other gaggle of family members to celebrate. Since our birthday always lines up so close to Easter, depending on the year, it’s just an excuse for an extra-long family gathering. Everything has always been Easter-themed with bunny rabbits and eggs and pink shit everywhere. There’s always a little bit of blue for me, but I don’t like blue and Althea hates pink. It’s never really been about us. Nonetheless, on a bright and balmy April 17th, Althea and I wake up as seventeen-year-olds. Seventeen-seventeenth.

“This ain’t never gonna happen again,” Grandma Forrester says to us. “Turning seventeen on the seventeenth, that is. Better enjoy this day.” The way she says it sounds ominous.

Althea’s idiot friends are there. And Horse Shit Hands. The only friends I’d have to invite are a thousand miles away. I don’t even know if I’d consider them friends. The only person I’d want there can’t be. Can’t ever be. He’s stuck at Devon, enduring a probation that, according to his last letter, involves him cleaning toilets. They told Finny they were being lenient. They could have suspended him and sent him home in shame. I don’t see how there’s any less shame in scrubbing a john.

Mabel and Caroline sit on either side of me and giggle.

Is your leg feeling better, Gene? _Giggle, giggle._

My, you look so handsome. _Giggle._

Wait, what’s that bruise on your nose?

Oh my! Did you get into a fight?

I cover my face with my hand and say I fell down the stairs.

More giggling. Oh gee, that’s too bad! But I’m sooooo glad you’re okay! _Giggle, giggle, giggle!_

Mabel slips her arm through mine and Caroline puts her arm through my other one and I feel like how a wishbone must feel. I catch my father watching us, and I smile half-heartedly at Mabel. I shouldn’t give her any encouragement, but there’s a spotlight on me now. And it’s shaped like a bull.

I look around the yard and see Tanner parked underneath a crepe myrtle. Momma gets up from her lounge chair and wheels him over to the table. He shakes his head, but she insists. Aunt Faye stands over them both with a cigarette and talks about prosthetics. Tanner looks probably like I do: defeated, resolved. A pinched out flame. A nurse comes to the house every day to look after him, but my mother often interferes, and although her drinking has slowed, she’s still too drunk to help much. And Tanner needs help with everything. Bathing. Going to the bathroom. My mother tried to feed him once, just once, and he slapped the spoon right out of her hand.

I see Randy over by the cake. He’s bored. There’s no one his age to play with. He has his fingers poised to dig right in but he sees me and I shake my head at him. He frowns, takes a dollop of frosting on his finger, and crouches under the table. I spot Althea sitting with Richie and she glances over at me. She gives me a tiny shrug. I give her a tiny shrug back. Seventeen. This is what seventeen will be like.

And eighteen.

Then nineteen.

Twenty.

Shit.

I jump up between Mabel’s and Caroline’s annoying chatter and go over to my mother. “Can I take Tanner for a walk? Just down the road a little?”

My mother has been gulping ambrosia wine from a teacup, like no one will know, and fuming under Aunt Faye’s forever know-it-all mouth. But she turns to me, pleasant surprise crossing her features, “Why, Eugene. That’s a wonderful idea. Of course you can, darlin’. Tanner, won’t you like that?”

Tanner turns his head, his one eye positively smoldering up at me.

I grab the handlebars and push him towards the driveway before he can protest. I wheel him out onto the road and loosen the blue tie around my neck.

“What the hell you trying to pull?” He says grouchily.

“You don’t want to be there and neither do I.”

I wheel him down to the Forrester Cemetery where every Forrester ever is buried. Even ones that don’t die in Montgomery are always taken home and placed here. My Great Aunt Renetta left Montgomery when she was seventeen. She was determined to travel the world and made it as far as Biloxi. There she met an eighty-seven year old rail tycoon, Elias Gilfoyle. Elias dressed her up in sables and pearls and Renetta married him two weeks before he croaked. She didn’t know what to do with all that fortune, so she opened up a rodeo in Santa Fe, bought a steamboat, and got involved with some Comanche miner, Phillip Watchtaker. It’s highly disputed: he either told her he could read minds or she convinced him that he could read minds. He did convince her to sell the rodeo, the steamboat, and come live with him in a cavern in Kentucky. She was found about fourteen years later, laying on the side of a highway with an empty jug of moonshine in one hand and a fistful of matted black hair in the other, and Phillip Watchtaker was nowhere to be seen. Renetta was brought to Montgomery and it’s her grave I pause at because she tried. She tried to make it out of here and despite marrying a Gilfoyle they engraved Forrester on her tombstone. Still just a Forrester. Even after all of that.

I ought to repeat it to myself: there is absolutely, positively no hope.

I park Tanner under the oak that stands just beside Great-Grandpa Forrester’s final resting place to give him some shade. I sit on the knoll next to him and rip off my tie and begin picking irritably at the grass. Tanner stares down at me like he can’t decide if he wants to squash me like a bug or swat me like a fly.

“It’s your birthday, idiot,” he says. “You ought to be happier.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“It’s your birthday, you got two good legs, and you don’t look like me. That’s somethin’ to smile about.”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“It is so,” he scowls.

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Fine.” He leans away from me.

We sit in silence for a time, and I couldn’t have asked for a prettier day. The clouds are fluffy and white. The sky a crystal blue. Birds sing, flowers bloom, and the grass in my hands is the color of Finny’s eyes when I catch his gaze from across a room.

I want to beat my fists on something. I want to break something.

“You ain’t planning on running off again, are you?” Tanner says. “If so, I ain’t gonna play no part in it.”

“I’m not planning nothing. Dad would shoot me dead.”

“Serve you right. Runnin’ off like a big baby.”

I turn away from him, stick my hand in a mound of dirt, and try not to think about how there are dead Forresters underneath. Dead Forresters in dead Montgomery earth.

“You better not even think about using me for anything,” Tanner continues. “I ain’t gonna play no part in any of your bullshit.”

I brush grass and dirt off my pants and feel like I’m eight and we’re at his graduation party. I had the nerve to sit next to him and he dug a knuckle into my thigh, pressing and twisting, and I yelped and jumped up. Momma told me to quit making all that ruckus and Tanner watched me so intently, and I knew he was watching, so I just took my plate and went down to the end to sit with Althea. I didn’t let a single tear drop. I had a bruise. I’d poke at it in the bathtub. It reminded me of something; it hurt in a way that wasn’t satisfying.

“Leavin’ your own birthday party,” Tanner grumbles. “That’s some ungrateful shit, I tell you what.”

I turn to him. “If you’d ever been around for any of our birthday parties you’d know they’re not for us.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” There’s a warning in his tone.

“Nothing.” I press my thumb into my thigh and I think it might still be there. Under layers of muscle and skin; such an unsatisfying hurt.

I hear the wheels of his chair make a click. “Oh, I see what it is. I see. Yeah. Your little feelings all hurt ‘cause you ain’t got someone here to shove off a tree.”

I stand up and face him, the grin still all slick and Forrester and unflinching even on his scarred up face. I’d forgotten. It seems as if a million years has passed.

I lean towards him, make my eyes even with his and my voice low. “Better to be shoved off a tree than blown up.”

Tanner’s face twists with rage and he reaches for me, but I move back and the force of his lunge brings him out of the chair. He falls flat on his stomach, the stumps of his legs flailing, he reaches for my ankles and I move away. I watch him try to pull himself with his arms, his face turning red and purple, the stumps kick and he swears a blue streak. I have to turn away, my cheeks growing warm from the shame of seeing him like this.

After a minute or so, he tires himself out. Sweat beads on his upper lip, he pants like he ran a marathon, and he lays there all sprawled in the grass. My Mighty Marine brother; he’s merely grass stains and a bandage coming undone.

“Here,” I put my hand on his shoulder, try to sit him up. He turns on his side, pushes me away. I reach for him again and he strikes at me with his fists. I fight him. “Just let me help you.”

“Fuck you!”

I grit my teeth. “Come on!” I lift him up as best I can, but he fights me. It’s like lifting a mutant child as he tries to strike me and his leg stumps kick. I hoist him into his wheelchair and pin his wrists to the armrests. As I stare into his exposed eye - reddening with every second - I feel the level is off. It’s clear, as we face each other like this, it’s off. It’s all wrong.

I begin to tremble. “You want to know why I ran away?”

His breath is heaving. “I don’t give a shit!”

I calculate it in my head, tripping and falling. I’m awful sick. “You shook his hand. He was here. And I can’t be with him and it was him - the one - when I said…God, I wanted to be with him.” I take a breath and it’s like I’m rolling down a hill, gathering speed. “You might look that way on the outside, but that’s how I feel on the inside. Pieces of me missing. Scarred up and hurting. Because I love him more than anything. More than anything momma or dad could ever give me. More than my own self.”

I’m squeezing his hands. It must be hurting him, but all he does is shrink back from me.

“And I’m seventeen years old today and he’s not here and it’s not right. He’s at Devon and I’m here and it’s not right. I almost hurt him and he forgave me - he just _forgave_ me - how can I live with out that? How could anybody live without that?”

I let up, I let go, I feel like I’ve just imploded, unceremoniously. I stare down at the grass - the green, green grass - and I think, with absolute horror, that I will end up underneath it one day. I look around us. This will be where I rest in peace. Christ, I’m only seventeen.

“Let’s go back.” Tanner’s voice is hollow. I look down at him. His eye is cold, his face is pale. His expression has gone vacant. I push him out of the cemetery and his head hangs. I fix a piece of the bandage that’s come undone before we get up to the house.

He swats my hand away as if it were a fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Hoping the next chapter won't take nearly as much time. Thank you for reading!


	15. Chapter 15

_Tuesday, April 13th, 1943_

_My Dearest Gene,_

_I passed by the tree today where our initials are carved. Even though it was the place you fell from, I can’t help but revere it now. I can’t help but to look upon it fondly, knowing that the moment I knew you were okay, the very second you opened your eyes and spoke to me, I was filled with the greatest hope and relief. I adored you so, Gene, and I adore you still._

_I stood against that tree, looking at the carving, and thought of that day, the look in your eyes, and the sweetness in your voice when you told me a circle doesn’t end. I think of that conversation often, but not as much as I think of you. I miss you terribly, Gene. Everyday I’m missing and needing everything, absolutely everything, about you. I miss the sleepy look in your eyes when you’ve been up late reading. I miss the way you say my name after we’ve made love. I miss your smile, so perfect and happy, when we’d talk in the evenings after dinner. It pains me to wake up and see your empty bed each morning; to want to hold you in my arms, but go to sleep each night with them empty. I swear to you, as soon as I’ve accepted my diploma, I will tell my folks about us, and come right away to Montgomery. I count the hours and the days until I see you again…_

_And now, I’d like to wish you the happiest of birthdays. I want so much to be there with you, to celebrate with you, and it’s my hope you’ll have the most wonderful day ever. Please also pass on my sincerest birthday wishes to your sister. I can’t believe you’ll be seventeen! Older and wiser, my dearest Gene._

_Please also accept this birthday gift. I know it isn’t much, but I couldn’t help but think of you when I saw it. I hope when you read it you’ll think of me…_

_My love for you is a circle, eternal and complete, and I wish you the most sensational birthday of them all._

_Yours until the end of time,_

_Finny_

I try not to let my teardrops smudge the penciled letters.

I lay in my bed clutching Finny’s letter in my hand and gathered in my arms, pressed to my heart, is his birthday gift: a book of Latin love poems. And you’d better believe I looked for the Ovid work immediately to find he’d underlined the passage three times: _Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum_.

Dear God in Heaven, what did I do to deserve someone like him?

“Sap,” I mumble to myself. Me more than him. The Sappiest of all the Saps. I wipe my eyes and clutch the book tighter. He held it, he touched it, and I feel as if I’m being such a child. So unlike a man, so unlike a grown Forrester boy, just teetering on the precipice. It’s time I learned. I wipe my eyes again and sit up.

_Da mi basia mille._

_Give me a thousand kisses._ If only…it’s all I would have wanted today. Any day. All the days. I find the poem again and read the words, the very ones I read to him that night that seems so long ago it plays like a silent film in my thoughts. I get so lost in that sweet memory that I don’t hardly blink when there’s a knock on my door and Althea pokes her head in.

“You ready?” She whispers.

“Yeah. Sure.” I set the book aside and scrub a hand over my face. “Why are you whispering?”

“Was I?” She comes over to my bed with a box wrapped in newspaper and a floppy red bow on top. “Why are you just sitting here in the dark?” She looks at my face. “Oh. You saw his gift.”

I run my fingers over the book cover. It’s bound with leather and the letters on the front are embossed in gold. He’d paid a pretty penny, and I recall a specialty book shop we’d passed after the parade. I wonder how he’d managed with his probation and all. The risk and thoughtfulness of his gesture, his loving words, make fresh tears fall down my cheeks.

Althea delicately picks up the book, turning it in her hands, flipping through pages. “I figured it was a book or something. My, it’s lovely, isn’t it? I’m almost jealous.” She sets the book down and nudges the box towards me. “Maybe you ought to open yours first.”

I reach under my bed and pull out a package I’d hastily wrapped with leftover Christmas paper I’d found in the closet. “It’s ladies first. Like always.”

We’d started this around the age of six. I remember that birthday vividly for various reasons. Momma huffed and puffed around the backyard, her belly round and full with all ten and a half pounds of Randy, cussing up a storm because she was over it. Just done. Althea and I may have been early, but Randy was late. Really late. So late they thought maybe they got the dates wrong again. And then Aunt Faye started up, teasing and crowing and said, _you don’t suppose there’s three in there this time, do you Leticia? My, oh_ _my! What a litter that’ll be!_ And Momma waddled after her and nearly knocked her teeth out with the stick we used for our very first, and very last, piñata.

Tanner wasn’t there, but the gift momma and dad pretended was from him sat atop the gift table - until Uncle Alvin got into the bourbon and knocked the table over, sending all the gifts flying in the air and into mud puddles from all the rain that previous week. Everyone jumped up out of their chairs, aghast, hands on hips, and just plain annoyed that there was a mess to clean and what does it matter anyway. The children won’t remember.

Althea and I weren’t the least bit perturbed. We knew even at that age the only birthday that mattered in our family was Tanner’s and that Fall he turned sixteen. He strode through the banquet hall our father rented, on his two good legs, tall and strong, the epitome of a champion, while we sat in the darkest most out-of-the-way corner with Cora and newborn Randy in his bassinet. There were long lines of men outside of Berkley & Co. Steel begging for work, but by God, my parents would be damned if Tanner didn’t have a seven-layer cake and a jazz quartet all the way from Hattiesburg at his party. But that day, our sixth birthday, Althea and I crept away from the adults, as they shook their heads at the muddy gifts, and went inside the house. Althea had snatched a slice of cake from the refreshment table and presented it to me. I’d had the same idea. I proudly reached into my pocket for the slice of cake I’d grabbed for her, but all that came out was a pile of mushy crumbs. I flushed with embarrassment, but Althea took the mushy crumbs, gave me a hug, and we ate cake on the floor of the parlor while the adults fussed and drank and dad yanked Uncle Alvin out by his ear.

And thus began our “secret” gift exchange. At first it was just silly stuff from the party. I’d save a purple streamer and give it to her. She’d take the serving spoon from the punch and give it to me. Our own little party within the party. As we got older, we started buying things. I always used the cash we got from our grandparents at Christmas and the first thing I bought for her was a bag of gum balls from G.C. Murphy’s. That year she bought me salt and pepper shakers that looked like Laurel and Hardy. And then it turned into a contest where we tried to outdo each other with the ridiculousness or weirdness of our gifts. She about had me when we were fourteen and she got me a “genuine” mummified lizard from the Andes. But I went soft that year and made her cry when she opened up her gift of her first set of pearls. Momma had fussed that Althea was too young for such an extravagance, and I’d seen her look of disappointment Christmas morning, so I’d saved and saved for those pearls and this year I’ve gone just as soft and sentimental. King of the Saps, indeed.

She holds my gift in her hands, and I pick up the box from her. I stare at her, waiting. “Well? Open it.”

“You open yours.”

“No, ladies first.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine we’ll do it together. On the count of three. One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

I make like I’m going to unwrap the box, but I stop when she pulls off the Christmas paper and opens the top. She pulls back the crinkly tissue to reveal the stationary set I’d special ordered all the way from New York City. Her fingertips touch the elegant and decorative ‘A’ on the paper that looks as if it were copied directly from an illuminated manuscript. She picks up the fountain pen, made of mother-of-pearl, out of a pure silver case etched with A.J.F. She looks at me with wide teary eyes, and I grin at her smugly because I completely shocked her this time. I shocked her good.

“Happy Birthday,” I say smartly.

“Oh, Gene! Of all the things!” She tries for outraged but her voice cracks and a little tear falls.

I can’t help but laugh. “Listen, the first person you write with that better be her and not some soldier.”

She sticks out her bottom lip. “You sneaky little…why I ought to…how did you even pay for it? Don’t you owe me for a train ticket?”

“Don’t change the subject now.” I find a handkerchief for her and she blows her nose. “A special gift for a special girl. Worth every penny.” I grin at her while she dabs her eyes.

“Oh, we’ll see who laughs last,” she says. “You haven’t opened yours yet. So much for the count of three.”

“You know that never works.”

“Hush now. Open it up.”

I take off the bow and tear through the newspaper. Inside the box I see the outline of a picture frame. I hesitate for a hushed second and then I see within that frame - handsome, shining, brilliant and wonderful - is a photograph of Finny. My jaw drops, and I can’t even move as my eyes begin to sting.

Althea leans towards me with an exaggerated _hee hee_ and exclaims, “Happy Birthday!”

I look up at her, then back at the picture. Then her again. The picture. Her. “What - where - ? How did - ? Who - ?”

“What’s that you say, dear brother?” She holds a hand up to her ear. “Oh, are those tears of joy I see?” She giggles. “You think you’re the only one with tricks up your sleeve! Well, get a load of this, why don’t you?”

The photograph was taken for our Devon yearbook. It was the one taken just this past winter. I remember him sitting for it, wearing his Devon tie - around his neck for once - his hair slicked back, his dazzling smile with his perfectly white teeth and that dimple…a place I have kissed and kissed and kissed… oh Dear Lord, I will die. I will drop dead right here of shock, of love, of the dozens of emotions bursting out of my heart right this second and melting my brain to mush.

“Damn you, Althea,” I manage, tears dripping down my cheeks. “I’ve never…how on earth - ?”

“It was a cinch.” She snaps her fingers. “He puts his return address on all his letters. I just wrote him and asked for a picture. When I told him what it was for, he sent that photograph, I sent him money for the postage, and I bought the frame. Easy as pie. He did have a request, though.”

I sniffle and hug his photo to my chest. “What was that?”

“A picture of you. I hope you don’t mind, but I sent that one of you in the parlor. The one from last March. I always thought you looked so dashing in it, so I cut out me and Randy and sent it along. He was pleased as punch to get it. Sent me a telegram. He’s awful sweet. You really hit the jackpot with him.”

My mind is a shocked, sappy mess as I attempt to construe how Althea and Finny did all this without me knowing, so it takes me a minute to remember the picture in the parlor. Randy, Althea, and I had been photographed at Grandpa and Grandma Forrester’s 57th Wedding Anniversary. We sat around a table, all dressed up, bored to tears, and I’m sure my thoughts last year were full of Finny, envious and calculating, when Uncle Victor called over to us to _smile!_ and neither one of us did. But while my face stayed neutral, there was a slight smile in my eyes. Maybe the camera had caught me at the right second, right when I was thinking of Finny in a different way, in a way I couldn’t grasp until a fall from a tree jostled it loose. It was the only picture of myself where I thought I looked grown up. Forrester boy into Forrester man. And now Finny has it. I hold his picture closer. Something of me, and something of him. I wish I had more to give.

“I don’t know what to say,” I practically blubber, gazing at the maddeningly perfect face that I have kissed and admired and desired like a lovesick lunatic.

Althea tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Just say: oh, Althea, you’re brilliant! And you’ve truly outdone yourself at last. Thank you very much.” She makes a mock stage bow.

I set the photo down and reach for her, wrapping her up in a hug. “You really have outdone yourself. I don’t think I could ever thank you enough.”

“I’ll accept that, too,” she says, hugging me back.

I pull away and pick up the picture again. “It’s perfect.” My fingers follow the contours of his beautiful face. “Absolutely what I needed. Everything. Just…everything.”

She leans over to look at it. “He’s so photogenic, I just can’t get over it. Just like a film star. The girls at school would turn into absolute drips and chase him down the block if they saw him.”

“Well, they can’t have him.” I clutch the frame to my chest. “He’s mine.”

She giggles. “And I’m sure he’s thinking the very same thing about you.”

I look around my bedroom. “I don’t know where to put it.”

“Right there.” She points. “Right on your bedside table silly.”

I wince. Right where Tanner or dad could see it. “I think I might keep it under my pillow.”

She gets up with her stationary set and pen. “So romantic.” She examines her gift again. “This is so thoughtful, Gene. It’s perfect, too. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

“Well, I’m sure I’ll do something else stupid that I’ll need your help with before the month is over. Consider that an apology in advance.”

“I reckon I’m looking forward to you doing something stupid again.” She hugs me again. “Happy Birthday, Gene.”

“Happy Birthday, Althea.” I hug back.

We tell each other goodnight, and then she leaves my room, and I lay down with Finny’s picture beside me. I could almost pretend it’s really him in the flesh laying here with me. I take the letter and unfold it and put that beside his picture. Then I get the book and put that beside it as well and arrange it all until there’s something resembling a little shrine to him on my bed.

Perfect.

All these things of him.

Just…perfect.

After a few minutes of this idolatry, I take the letter and go over to my desk and begin writing him a long-winded, flowery, lovey-dovey-thank-you when I look over his letter again, for the millionth time just today, and my eyes snag at the part about him telling his folks about us and coming here. It’s like all the words flow smooth until I get to those and they become rough and craggy. I swallow and a feeling resembling dread begins to form in the pit of my stomach, but I quickly extinguish it, brush it away, and finish my letter to him. I don’t mention that part at all.

* * *

My parents get Tanner ready for Atlanta.

Dad wheels him out to the car where my mother and Cora are piling pillows in the back seat. I didn’t know we had so many pillows or blankets and Cora stands with a stack in her arms, against her face, while my mother arranges again and again, her house robes getting stuck in the floorboards.

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times,” my mother huffs. “You ought to get these seats reupholstered. You hear me, Herman? There’s a spot coming loose right there. Just look right there, why don’t you?”

“I don’t see nothing,” my father replies without looking, parking Tanner beside the car.

My mother snatches another pillow from the stack and stuffs it in the floorboards. “What if he gets his finger caught? And with you driving like a demon. His finger could get stuck right in there. You see that?”

“If his finger gets caught, I expect he’ll just pull it out.”

“He could fall asleep like that. All the blood will just rush out. And if it goes numb he wouldn’t feel it.”

“He ain’t gonna get his finger caught. Now hush!”

I sit on the porch and watch with Randy beside me. Althea is off at a school function. She helped my mother sew up Tanner’s pants last night because my mother kept stabbing her fingers with the needle. Cora had to bandage them up this morning and my mother came out of the house with what looked like white plums stuck to the ends of her fingers they used so much gauze. Althea tried to hug Tanner goodbye as he sat by the library window, but all he gave her was a half-hearted pat on the arm. He won’t be gone but a month or so. My mother has been acting as if it will be for the next forty years.

“Be sure to mind the speed limit now,” she says, stuffing more bedding into the back seat, creating a cushy cocoon. “You won’t go straight through Tuskegee, will you? You ought to catch the train in Columbus.”

“We’ll catch the train in Tuskegee.” My father turns to me. “Eugene. Come over here and help me.”

I step off the porch and go over to them. This whole time Tanner’s just been sitting there by Cora, staring off in the distance.

“You’ll take him to Columbus,” my mother orders. “It’s a safer route.”

I get on one side of Tanner and my father gets on the other. Together we lift him out of the chair. I see his face turn scarlet and he shifts his eye over to me then to our father. My heart starts to pound.

“I won’t do no such thing,” my father retorts. “The Columbus station is just as big as the one here. How am I supposed to get him through all that mess?”

“Oh, how inconvenient for you, Herman!” My mother stands over us while we settle Tanner into the seat. “How inconvenient for you to help your own son! I guess I ought to come along seeing as how you’re so put off!”

The reason for taking Tanner out of Montgomery to catch the train isn’t lost on me. And it’s not lost on him. An awful lot of people use the Montgomery station. It’s quite the hub. It would be impossible to wheel Tanner through without being noticed. A Bowling could be there. An Upton. A Turpin or a Farrington. My father isn’t the kind of man that accepts condolences or gives them out. Pity is a akin to a stab in the back.

“You ain’t coming along, I done told you twice!” Dad shuts the door and continues to argue with my mother. She’d asked to come along at least six times, and four out of the six fairly drunk so she probably doesn’t remember. Once dad gets Tanner safely to Atlanta, he’ll return to Montgomery. I was hoping he’d stay for the full month. Tanner will be alone until after his first surgery and my mother will be on the next train, barreling through the doors of his hospital room, knocking out anyone that tries to get in her way, and I expect she won’t leave Atlanta until he does.

I see Randy standing on the other side of the car. Tanner rolls the window down and looks out at him. “You gonna be good?”

Randy leans through the window and sets his chin on his arms. “Can I sleep in your room?”

“I guess that’ll be all right. Long as you don’t mess it up.”

Randy stares at Tanner’s right stump. “You mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Cause of the train. I hated you.”

Tanner sighs and leans towards him. “You shouldn’t ever hate anybody, but if you have to, make sure it’s just for a little while. Then you gotta stop. Else it’ll eat you alive. Understand?”

Randy nods.

Tanner’s constant scowl briefly softens. “When I get back, we’ll go down to Woolworth’s, get you something nice. That be okay with you?”

Randy tucks his chin into his arm. “But I don’t hate you anymore.”

“It’s just about time we did something together. You and me. Don’t you think?”

I’m irritated and embarrassed to feel a twinge of envy. But then Randy glances at me. I give him a slow nod. He looks back at Tanner. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Tanner promises.

Randy steps back and salutes. He wanders back over to the porch where momma and dad are arguing and Cora stands there still holding a stack of pillows.

I feel as if I’ve lost something. Not like an object. Nothing tangible. Too small to be a battle.

“Those were some wise words,” I mutter.

Tanner’s jaw clenches.

“I bet he’ll remember them for a long time. Like I remember the things you said to me.”

His head turns to me slowly, deliberate.

“You really think it’s okay to hate someone?” I look down at my feet, nudge some stones on the walkway with my shoe. “Even just for a little while?”

“I’d expect you’d know precisely the answer to that.”

I glance up at him.

“You ought to stay away from him.” His lips pinch like he tasted something sour. “He ought not be around the likes of you.”

I look over at momma and dad on the porch. “I hope they fix you up good in Atlanta. I’m real sorry this happened to you, and I want you to get better.”

“You ain’t sorry a lick,” he hisses. “And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m just trying to talk to my older brother, that’s all.”

“Damn you! God damn you!” He turns to look back at our parents then at me. “Then why the hell did you tell me all that filthy nonsense?”

I shrug and go back to nudging the stones. “I don’t know.”

I feel his gaze on me, the heat of it. Heavy and like red-hot irons. “You want me to tell dad, is that it? That your game? Make me look like a chump?”

I shrug again.

“Cause if it’s true,” he says carefully. “He’ll send you away. Throw you in a nut house. Or jail.”

“Probably.”

“And kill that fella of yours.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll never see any of us again and you’ll lose everything.”

“That too.”

I look up at him and he’s staring at me in a way I haven’t seen. Almost pensive. Frightened.

“That old Führer burns people like you,” he says quietly. “Sticks ‘em in ovens.”

“I’m sure he does.”

He looks away from me, shifts around in the nest of pillows. I continue to kick at the stones. The opposite of hope is the color of Tanner’s bandages. It’s the shape of his mouth. The texture of his puckered and mottled skin. They’ll fix him up in Atlanta. He won’t look like this anymore. Hope renewed like cells. Hope regenerating like new skin.

“This fella of yours,” he says evenly. “How’s he feel about you?”

“He feels the same way.” I have a strong urge to unwrap the bandage and touch his burns. To have hopelessness at my fingertips. For once in my life.

“That’s disgusting, Gene.”

I see our father walking off the porch and momma shouting something at him about wide turns. “Here’s your chance. And if not now, you got that long drive.”

Tanner waits until dad gets his bags in the passenger seat and cuts on the engine. He sticks his head out the open window. In the cloud-covered sunlight, I see new skin growing over old skin. “Naw. I ain’t gonna say nothing. You’ll have enough misery as it is. You surely will.”

It stings just enough, but it fades as they drive away.

Tanner doesn’t know the half of it. I already have enough misery as it is. It’s not something I wait for; it’s already happening. Present tense.

* * *

The meeting room smells like cigarettes, aftershave, and that peculiar - but not unfamiliar - odor of Old Man mixed with Old Building.

I look around the Shriner’s Meeting Hall, my gaze only partly focusing on the men my father introduces me to. They all look practically the same: fifty-plus with the red fez and mildly overstuffed with self-importance. It’s the same face almost, same voice making remarks about how sorry he is about my brother, and he’s so pleased to meet me, and wasn’t I all the way up North somewhere with those highfalutin carpetbaggers? Land sakes, how could I have stood those pretentious Yankee snobs and their pretentious Yankee schools and then to have fallen off one of their pretentious Yankee trees, of all things, and broken my leg and it looks like I’m doing better, and exempt from service? Isn’t that a pity! And ain’t I just so happy to be back home? Back to the land of my roots, land of my birth, proper society, and values that are noble and true? I nod and smile like an idiotic puppet and words come out of my mouth that I semi-rehearsed in my head before we arrived.

My father slaps me on the back and leads me from one pillar of the community to the next, including, but not limited to: Mayor Sherwood, Sheriff Walters, Reverend Barrett, about four city Councilmen (you really think I can be bothered to remember all their names?), the Honorable Judge Dodson, and the Farrington family patriarch, Otis Farrington with his generous waist-line and double chin. The grand old Owl himself, Mr. Pingwell, is there but my father gives him a distant nod and steers me away from him.

I’ve got half a mind to go over to him and tell him _I’m so sorry_ for my behavior. Repeatedly. Until he’s running out the door again.

And so is everyone else.

As we all settle down for the luncheon, I excuse myself to the men’s room. I’ve suddenly become all sweaty and exhausted. I feel as if I’ve jumped through about a million hoops and I’ve got a million more to go. I open the door and just across on the entryway wall is a full-length mirror. I catch the sight of myself and do a double take.

I don’t know if it’s being back home, being one year older, or the pain of missing Finny, but I see something in my face I’ve never seen before. It’s around my jaw and eyes. I turn my head from side-to-side, I lift my chin then point it down to see if the shadows, the angles, are merely a trick of the lights. But there’s no tricks. No mistakes. I suddenly remember being a child, rounded face and baby fat, peeking into Tanner’s bedroom while he combed his hair, standing in front of a mirror just like this, dressed just like me, in a suit and tie, hair parted on the exact same side, with legs - both of his damn legs - getting ready to go somewhere he’d never in a million years take me to, and even though he couldn’t have been older than me at this very minute, I saw him for what he was, what I believed he was. A man.

And that’s what I see.

A man looking back at me.

It’s not so much the obvious markers of manhood, things I experienced years ago, long before; it’s something else entirely. It goes skin deep, but underneath it all, in mirrors and perhaps in photographs, it makes the subtlest of appearances. I blink and in that second it’s gone.

Just me again.

I run my fingers across my jaw and chin.

Just me. Forrester boy into Forrester man.

I turn from the mirror and around the corner into the restroom where I see Gil Upton at the sink.

“Thought I heard somebody come in,” he says with a grin, drying off his hands.

I stop short, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Here with my old man. Same as you.” He leans back on the sink and pulls a cigarette case from his pocket, takes one out, and offers one to me. I take it, only because I need to do something with my hands, and he lights them, takes a long drag, and looks me over from head to toe. “I saw you come in earlier. Guess you didn’t see me.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I pretend to take a puff. “I might’ve been distracted. I don’t really…like things like this.”

“Nervous?”

“Yeah,” I admit.

He nods. Takes another drag. “It’s all a bunch of bullshit really. All the niceties and the chest-puffing. Let me guess: your old man made you, said it’d be good for you.”

“Yep.”

He takes another drag. He looks hesitant for a second. “You remember my brother? Freddie?”

I look at him, puzzled. “Freddie? Freddie Upton? I thought he was your cousin?”

Gil shakes his head and exhales through his nostrils.

“He passed away a few years back,” I say, remembering. “Pneumonia wasn’t it?”

He shrugs, ashes his cigarette in the sink. “I reckon. Doc didn’t really know himself.”

“I was sorry to hear it either way, and I didn’t know he was your brother…I’m really sorry, Gil.”

He shrugs again. “It ain’t like I knew him all that well. He was so much older, and there was Flo, Evie, and Susan in between us.” He pauses for another puff and looks at me intently. “Look. I know what it’s like. To suddenly be ‘the one’ and have your whole world change.” He pauses again. “And to have to live in someone else’s shadow.”

I look down at my cigarette dangling.

“Happens real fast, doesn’t it?”

I inhale a little bit and instantly feel dizzy. “Tanner’s not like Freddie, though. That’s what I don’t understand. I mean, I guess it’s because he can’t have kids, but how do they know that for sure? And why does that even matter? There’s Randy, after all. And Althea, too. Why does there have to be all this order? Traditions and such.”

“I’m guessing you don’t want all that matrimonial bliss and society shit same as me.”

I shake my head. “I’ve never wanted it.”

“And yet,” he says thoughtfully, gazing around the restroom and taking another long drag, “it’s hard when you’re getting all that attention, ain’t it? Fancy school, men’s clubs, all those debs, money, property and legacy. Makes you feel almost like…”

“A son.”

“Yeah.” He stubs his cigarette out in the sink. “A son.”

We let that sit. The phrase hangs between us, in the smoky air, trapped.

I sigh. “But it still shouldn’t mean that when Tanner’s whole life changes that -”

“You’re whole life has to change, too?”

I meet his gaze and he meets mine and what converges in between us is understanding. Perfect and clear. He puts his hands in his pockets and I nod, adding our punctuation.

“Say, when you gonna come out with us?” He says with a languid smile. “You’re a St. Paul’s boy now. I don’t know what they taught you up yonder, but you’ve left all those old Puritans sitting at home with their witch books way behind.”

I laugh. “I guess so.” I find an ashtray by the door and put my cigarette out.

“How about this weekend then? We’re going to The Palace. Maybe Lucky’s down on Commerce. You been there?”

“I don’t know. There’s a…” I pause, thinking of how to put it. “I got in some trouble not too long ago. I’ve been kind of restricted to the house.”

“Really?” The corner of his mouth lifts slightly in amusement. “Gene Forrester in trouble? Whatever did you do?”

I look away. “Nothing really. It was stupid. Just wasn’t thinking.”

“I see,” he says quietly. “Well, leave it to me then.” He grins and makes for the door. “Come on.”

“Do what?”

“Just come on.”

And so I do.

* * *

Gil’s dad, Clyde Upton, is seated directly across from my dad at the rounded, white-clothed tables. Clyde Upton is about fifteen years older, thirty pounds lighter, and one hundred percent balder than my father. He tries to hide it. I swear that piece under his fez looks like a polecat climbed up there and died.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Clyde says with a broad grin and syrupy sweet voice as Gil and I make our way over. “Pleasure to see you, Eugene. Quite the dashing young man these days, I see.” He extends his hand to me in greeting.

I return his handshake. “It’s nice to see you, too, Mr. Upton.”

“Oh, please.” He takes his seat. “Now that we’re social and all, Clyde is just fine.”

Gil sits next to his father, a sudden air of indifference coming over him. He takes a sip of the water and a bite of the food placed there by magic, and looks anywhere but at us.

Clyde picks at the gravy. “Your father and I were just talking about your poor brother.” He shakes his head, brows creased with deep concern. “It’s an awful pity, ain’t it, Herman? Young man like that, cut down in his prime.”

“Yes, pity,” my father replies tersely, cutting the slices of turkey on his plate.

“Certainly is a blessing to have Eugene here, though,” Clyde continues. “Gilbert, did you hear about poor Tanner Forrester? And he’s gone to Atlanta for…surgery, is it?”

My father’s already deep frown deepens. “Yes. Surgery. And he’s being fitted for prosthetics.”

“You don’t say?” Clyde sits back in his seat, runs a napkin over his mouth. “Gilbert, I was just thinking, ain’t it a shame to have one son with no legs and another son so crippled he can’t serve his country? Damn shame.”

“Damn shame,” Gil replies monotonously, giving all this attention to his lunch. I try to catch his eye, but he avoids looking in my direction. I see Clyde and my father exchange a look between them, oily and laced with heavy metals. I think I hear the distant sound of a train whistle. The C&O Railroad coming through.

My father sets his fork down and tears a chunk off his bread. “Yes indeedy, and I reckon it’s a good thing I’ve got three sons, Clyde. Lest you forget.”

“Oh, that’s right. The little Forrester boy.” He nods like he’s just figured out the solution to a problem. “It’s really a blessing in disguise, ain’t it Gilbert? One son too young and one son too crippled for any sort of combat.” He leans on the table and stares pointedly at my father. “No risk.”

My father slowly finishes chewing his last bite, wipes his mouth, tucks his napkin neatly on his lap, and grins widely. “Certainly is a blessing. Eugene here has the best marks in his class.” He whacks me on the shoulder and I drop my fork. “He was on his way to valedictorian at his last school and he’s well on his way at St. Paul’s. Brains is what he’s got. Take him further in life than pointin’ and shootin’ a damn gun.” He shifts his eyes to Gil. “Ain’t that right, Gilbert?”

I look at Gil and see he’s staring at me with that amused expression from earlier. He blinks and looks at my father. “Yes, sir.”

“How are your marks this session, Gilbert?” My father looks right at Clyde as he asks.

“Well, now, Gilbert’s as smart as a whip!” Clyde juts out his chin, “Why, just the other day -”

“Actually,” Gil interrupts. “My marks ain’t been so good lately.” He casts a look of apology to his father and gives a defeated knock to the table. “It’s that gosh darn trig, always tripping me up.” He shakes his head. “It’s just been eating at me all day, almost ruining my lunch. I’m sorry, father, I guess I should’ve said something before, but -”

“The hell you talking about?” Clyde stares wide-eyed at Gil. “The hell you mean you’re gettin’ all tripped up? Your momma told me last month that -”

“Well, last month, sure. But we’ve got this big exam coming up and all…” Gil stops, bites his lip, and looks down as if he’s composing himself, and then at my father. “Mr. Forrester, I know Gene’s real busy with his own studies, but, well, I’d just be much obliged if you’d allow Gene to come up to campus this weekend and help me. Now, I’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere -”

“Why, Eugene would love to come help you, Gilbert,” my father replies with a sneer right at Clyde. “Eugene’s a whiz at trigonometry, ain’t you, Eugene?” I open my mouth to answer but he keeps going. “Mathematics is important. Opens up a lot of doors. More than running around a damn base would, I’d say.”

“You sure you can spare him, Herman?” Clyde snaps like a turtle. “Don’t you need him to hobble around that Georgian nightmare for the draft office? After all, he’s got to make use of that cane he brought all the way from Plymouth Rock!”

My father smiles calmly. “It’s a condition of the bones. Runs in the family. Leg break aggravated it is all. Dr. Tellison suggests walking assistance as needed.”

“And I reckon that good doctor went quack, quack, quack all the way home!”

I shift my eyes over to Gil as my father and Clyde continue to make jabs at each other - they’re quite clever jabs, if I’m being honest - and see Gil sitting back in his chair, ankle crossed over knee, holding up his glass of lemon water, and swirling it like it’s a martini. He lifts it slightly and gives me a wink. I smile back and pick up my glass, mimicking his posture, I lift it up, and return the wink.

We down our waters in sync, like shots of liquor, set our glasses down with a peculiar - but not unfamiliar - thunk.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big THANK YOU for those that have been patient with the time in between uploads. I'm attempting a regular update schedule (every other Sunday maybe?) so I can finish this story. Thanks for reading! Also, this chapter and future ones may be longer than the previous ones. Just FYI. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

I’m sitting in the car with my father.

My shirt sticks to the perspiration on my back and the vinyl on the seat is hot against my elbow. It’s late August and the windows are rolled down but no breeze comes in to help. My shirt is a hand-me-down from Tanner. A light blue button-down that brought out the twinkle in his eyes, but on me it’s rumpled and it makes me look too pale. I watch a group of boys run up to one another in front of the dormitory and slap shoulders, nudge elbows, and greet each other in that roughhousing kind of way that I’ve never understood. So touchy-feely and yet there’s some hidden competition. Do you just know if someone is your best buddy because you want to punch them on the arm in greeting? I watch smiles spread wide, shouts, and belly laughs. They all know each other. I sink down a little in my seat.

“I’ll wire you some train fare for the holidays,” dad says. “And y’all get a break in October I reckon.”

I watch the other boys. They shout and laugh, carry suitcases and trunks, haul duffel bags on their shoulders. Established friendships and cliques collide all around me. Mothers and fathers hug their sons, wave, and car engines start.

“Pretty sure it’s October,” dad continues. “Either way, you ought to stay here. Less travel and less of a hassle for you.”

_And less of a burden on you, father?_ “I guess.”

He turns to look at me, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “This is a good school, Gene.”

I turn to look at him. _Yes, father, it is a good school. Yes indeedy. But it wasn’t good enough for Tanner, was it? Only the second best for your second son._ “I know.”

“And like I said: it’s good for a boy your age to get away for a spell.” He looks out the windshield. “You got to learn sometime. Learn to be a man.”

Here it is again. A word and its variations that I’ve heard no less than six hundred times in just the past couple of months alone. _Time to be a man. Be a real man. A few good men. Our men are going off to war. Hallmarks of manliness. It’s an insult to your manhood._ Sometimes I wonder how this could be happening to me. I’m so far from home, and I’m betting by November I’ll get a telegram telling me not to bother for Thanksgiving; to just take a train for Christmas. No need for so much travel. Our _men_ need us to travel less. Do your part! For Victory!

Dad opens the car door. “I reckon you ought to get settled in while I go see that fella, Ludsbury.”

As dad gets out of the car, I look out the open window and see a lone boy walking towards the dorm. His golden hair is backlit by the sun, his skin smooth and tanned. He carries a suitcase and a knapsack and his posture perfectly. He turns to wave to a car pulling away from the curb, and when he turns back there’s an expectant smile painted on his face like that of a budding film star. It’s as if he’s striding into that dormitory to accept some award, so self-assured, and so fascinating, I watch him go all the way inside. I simultaneously want to watch him all the time and hope I’ll never see him again.

I get the suitcase my mother packed for me out of the back. She had to do it twice. The first time, she stumbled and spilled some bourbon on the clothes. She screeched for Cora, they washed everything, and my mother folded my shirts into the suitcase a second time. She hugged me before I left and said she packed my suitcase herself as if that meant something. Then she said to behave and be like Tanner and remember you’re a Forrester, don’t let those Yankees tell me otherwise, and blah, blah, blah. She was drunk. She didn’t bother to wipe off the liquor that got on the suitcase itself so there’s the faintest of scents aggravated by the heat.

New Hampshire’s cold my ass.

I go inside the dorm and find an upperclassman with a clipboard. I give him my name and he directs me up the stairs and points behind him, directing me to go left. The dorm is noisy, the sounds of moving in, voices up and down the halls, talking and laughing, there’s two guys throwing a football back and forth in the hall where my room is. I stick close to the wall to stay out of their way, stay unnoticed, and find my new room; the place I’ll sleep and study, the place I’ll dream and brood.

The door is ajar, and I push it open. In the corner I see the back of a golden-haired head hanging a pink shirt in the closet. I see another bed across the room and lay my suitcase on it. The head turns around and I see it’s the guy from before, Mr. Film Star, and I expect him to look down his nose at me, frown, and in a matter of seconds conclude he’s supremely disappointed with who he’s stuck with. To see me for what I really am, for where I truly come from, and even know what I think about in the wee hours when I touch myself. I feel my face flush as his eyes find mine, and those eyes…it makes me think of holding some kind of gem - jade, peridot?

No. An emerald. Heavy and cool in my hand.

He smiles. My heart rate ticks upward as he comes towards me. He looks at my suitcase. “Guess you’re my new roommate?”

I shrug. “Guess so.”

My eyes feel as if they’re swelling from taking in the sight of him. Already I know, without really knowing, how magnificent he is. That someone as beautiful as him smiled at me, condescended, held out a branch and pulled me from the quicksand and a longing blooms inside me. A want for my very own. I’m resentful of it. I feel a thickening of my blood, and I can’t stop the thought that stabs into my brain completely unwanted, ridiculous, and just plain bizarre.

I could kiss this fool.

We’re the same height, but he seems so much bigger than me. On a pedestal. He looms in front of me with such a grin and how is it the sun is still alighting him from behind? The creases in his slacks are perfectly straight, his belt buckle gleams, and under the short sleeves of his striped shirt I see the outline of impressive biceps. The front of his shirt has come un-tucked - just a slight imperfection on an otherwise perfect form - and I want to fix it for him. I want to reach out and tuck the fabric into his pants and feel what my fingers might find there. How warm is his skin? How smooth? My thumbs would catch on the gleaming belt buckle and the metal would be cool, and maybe he’s sweating underneath those clothes. It’s so hot, after all, and he’s just been hanging his shirts. And maybe as I tuck in his shirt I could lean into him, nuzzle into the hair behind his ears, where our very essence is, and I bet he’d smell like a brand new day.

I blink.

And then I could push him away, be finished with him, done, and he could stand there perplexed, point fingers and say there’s something wrong with me, and he’d be right.

I exhale.

“I’m Phineas.” He sticks out a hand, and he’s got an accent. Massachusetts Bay. I want to shut him up. I want to listen to him all day long.

I swallow. Blink again. “Gene.” I shake his hand, feel the firmness of his grip, and my face gets hot, and I think I see, although I could’ve just imagined it, his cheeks flush pink.

“Some people call me Finny,” he says, shaking my hand decidedly. “If they want. I’ll leave that up to you.”

And that’s when I know this is a dream. Because in real life, when it actually happened, I broke the handshake and started to unpack. He offered to help. I told him no, it’s okay, and he hovered around me like a planet and started asking me questions that I wouldn’t fully answer. I was scared of him, I was fascinated with him, I was jealous of him. In an instant. Just like that.

But in this dream dimension, I don’t break the handshake. I pull him towards me. Close.

Closer.

I cup his face in my hands, peer deeply into those ocular emeralds, and say: “Don’t let me hurt you.”

I can feel his breath. It has the faintest of faint scents of bourbon. His eyes search mine, darting back and forth from one to the other.

“Don’t let me,” I plead. “I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

There’s a thrumming sound somewhere, like a heartbeat.

He wraps his fingers around my wrist. “Gene…”

“Please don’t.” I slide my arms around him and he feels real. Every inch of him touching every inch of me. “Don’t let me.”

“Gene…”

“Don’t.”

_Gene!_

* * *

I gasp and turn my head as water goes up my nose.

My arms thrash and I grab both sides of the bathtub. Water splashes up and over onto the tile and I sit up, wiping water away from my nose and eyes.

Shit.

My fingers and toes are pruny and there’s knocking at the door, Althea calling through, “Gene! Hurry up! Geez, you’ve been in there all morning!”

“Sorry,” I call back. “I’m getting out.”

I feel a dull ache in my head and remember why. Why I’m even in the bathtub, much less falling asleep in the bathtub. Last night: movies, beer, and hungover. I was so tired. I thought a bath might help. _Might._

I pull out the plug and towel off. I’m aroused, which is always the case when I dream of Finny, and I can’t walk out of the bathroom like this so I give it a minute. I’ve been having different variations of that dream for months. My favorite is when, after shaking hands, one of us says _it’s really nice to meet you_ and gets on his knees. It’s usually me. I wonder how much turmoil could have been saved if we’d just greeted each other like that from the beginning. But that was impossible, considering. The mess in my head wouldn’t have let him and surely he would have found it disconcerting that his new roommate was performing fellatio on him instead of shaking his hand.

I snicker at the absurdity and my dirty thoughts turn me on even more and I hiss through my teeth, “Knock it off.”

But this version of the dream was different. I ponder on it for a moment or so. I wonder if I’m just losing my mind. There’s no outlet for my frustrations aside from the one I can provide myself. It’s not enough, it’s not the same, and I think about making a phone call, but at this time on a Sunday morning Finny’s nowhere near a telephone and likely still doing his run around the track. According to his last letter, he’s trying to beat his own record. He said it’s all he can do. That’s his outlet, a way to circumvent the void. I think about him running and sweating and wiping it off his face, getting in the shower, naked, wet, and I come up behind him…naked, wet…

“Stop,” I hiss to myself. “Just stop.”

There’s another bang on the door. “Gene!”

“I’m coming!”

Dear Sweet Lord, I really wish I was. With him. Inside him. On him.

Dammit to Hell.

I wrap a towel around myself, then put on my bathrobe and hunch over. I think I can scuttle past Althea without her noticing anything, and so I fling open the door and maneuver around her towards my room. She’s standing in her flowy robe with her hands on her hips, a scarf around her head to hold in the rag curls, and a sneer that’s about as threatening as a lamb.

“There’s other people in his house, you know,” she hollers after me. “Just because you’re Mr. Popularity now don’t mean you can hog the bathroom.”

“I know, I know, sorry!” I run into my room and shut the door, strip everything off and slide under the covers.

Mr. Popularity - that’s me! I have “friends” and I go out on Saturday nights. And there’d be two working bathtubs if it weren’t for the ghost. Grandpa Forrester said that once in jest but now it’s become the truth. The water always cuts off randomly and gets real cold real fast, no matter how many plumbers my father pays and my mother berates. I’m thinking it’s Missouri. Just seems like it would be her, forbidding us our hygiene and convenience from the great beyond.

I take hold of myself and my mind wanders to my treasure trove of thoughts for these desperate moments. I pick out one, I play it in my mind - Finny and me meeting for the first time, and what I would’ve done to him if…if what? If it were as clear as day even back then? It would’ve been impossible, but it doesn’t matter. This is my time and this time he gets on his knees. Undoes my belt. I turn my head into my pillow to stifle a sound and bite into the fabric. I picture him on that hot August day looking up at me, and that mouth of his, that tongue…sweet Jesus…I put my hand on his head, I listen to him swallow…

It doesn’t take long. My groans are muffled by the pillow and I make sure I cup my hand. I’m panting afterward, my eyes squeezed shut, partly afraid that when I open them I’ll see the apparition of Missouri attempting to forbid me my orgasm.

The blissful parts of the after are interrupted as I think about his last letter. How he’s graduating soon and coming to Montgomery…I don’t like the dread or the fear that cuts in so I think about last night instead. I’m not one for going out and doing things - with people - and Finny knows this about me and him being the great conversationalist, him being the extrovert, him being the glowing star in a dark room, he knows and tolerates this trait of mine. By his side, when we’ve been around others, I’ve been like a dark, grumpy troll. He’s had to accommodate, dampen that light just a little bit. So, I thought maybe it would be good for me. Go out with Gil and the fellas. It might be okay. I might be just fine.

Gil arrived last night in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the silver trim, top pulled down, Horse Shit Hands, Jeb Farrington, and Bobby Turpin in tow around 7:30. It was easy to get the night out. Momma’s gone to Atlanta and dad wasn’t even home.

But Randy was. He stood on the front porch as I was leaving, his eyes wide with excitement. “Holy moly! You going out in that?”

“I am,” I smiled.

“You like a movie star now or something?”

I remember Bald Daddy Upton driving the Wraith with his wife, Florrie, up and down Dexter Avenue after he bought it. He wore his dead polecat on his head and she fanned her face and they were the envy of all the other families. The living end.

Gil smiled and waved to me then turned to Horse Shit Hands. “Get in the back.”

He made a face. “Why do I gotta move?”

“My car. My rules.” Gil turned to me. “Good to see you, Gene.” He looked behind me. “Who have we here?”

I turned and saw Randy trailing along. There was a sharp-tack jab somewhere under my ribs, a reminder. I actually had a moment, a flash-in-the-pan, where I wanted to shoo Randy away, fuss at him for following me because there was a time I followed Tanner out to a car full of his buddies and he turned on me with dark and cloudy eyes. He hollered at me, chased me back in the house, and the laughter of his friends followed me all the way inside. Annoying little brother. _Oh don’t mind him. Just my annoying little brother!_ And his eyes rolled and his friends laughed and he was gone. It’s nearly automatic; an actor who’s prepared for this role his entire life. I swallowed the urge whole.

I placed a gentle hand on Randy’s shoulder and guided him over. I made the introductions and Jeb and Bobby gave disinterested nods.

“Nice to meet you, Randy.” Gil leaned out of the driver’s seat for a handshake. “You like the wheels?”

Randy nodded.

“Say, uh…,” Horse Shit Hands leaned from the back where he was squished with Jeb and Bobby. “Is Althea home?”

“Nope,” I replied. And she was home. Completely and totally home.

I got in the car and Gil pulled out of the driveway. I waved to Randy as he watched after us.

“Well, where is she?” Horse Shit Hands pouted. “She ain’t out with Willie Bowling is she? Or Roy Ashton?”

I turned to him with the biggest smile. “She’s just out with her girlfriends.”

He sat back, nodded, relieved.

We went to The Palace and watched _The Clancy Boys_. That part was easy for me. Just sit and watch a movie. It struck me that I’ve yet to do that with Finny. I’ve yet to sit in a dark theater with him and maybe slip my hand over his thigh like I saw the guy doing to the girl in the row in front of us, but Finny wouldn’t push my hand away like the girl pushed the guy’s hand away. He’d keep it there. And, maybe if I dared, I’d run my hand up his thigh, close and closer…

Yeah. We need to go to the movies. I make a mental checklist.

But where? I frown. When?

_How?_

After the movie we loitered outside the entrance, smoking cigarettes, and getting looks from adults that walked by. Some girls showed up - Virgina Bowling, Leona Bradley, and Marianne Sherwood. There was talking, flirting, smoking, and I just stood against the wall of the theater, awkward. Grumpy-troll. Someone suggested we go to the river to hang out and what was I supposed to do? Gil was my ride and am I or am I not turning over a new leaf? Am I or am I not a St. Paul’s boy?

Gil drove us to the park by the Alabama River and there were girls, and beer, and a Wraith with plenty of leg room. What more could a St. Paul’s boy ask for? Jeb went off with Leona. They joined Bobby, some other St. Paul’s guys, and more girls. Horse Shit Hands looked over, hesitating, knowing full well I’d report his actions to Althea. But I looked at him sitting there with his crossed arms, completely clueless, and told him to go on ahead. I won’t tell Althea anything.

“Naw,” he sighed. “I’ll just go walking for a spell.” And he got out of the car and left.

I stayed in the car. And so did Marianne. Virginia sat across Gil’s lap, flirting and giggling, as if Marianne and I weren’t there at all. And Marianne expected things. We were in the backseat of a car, parked by the Alabama River, so I knew exactly what she expected. Virginia kissed on Gil’s neck, leaving lipstick marks, and he glanced over at me and Marianne as if he expected something, too, so I put my arm around her. That was all I could manage and that annoyed her. So she left.

As soon as Marianne was gone, Gil gently pushed Virginia off his lap. “Say, why don’t you go join those other fellas? I’ll be over in a minute.”

“What? Why?” She pouted.

“Me and Gene gotta talk about trig so his old man don’t kill him for lying.”

“Trig?” She glared at me like I’d just ruined all her fun. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Go on now, I’ll be over in a bit.” Gil gave her a peck on the cheek and she huffed and puffed and got out of the car, her chances of an impromptu make-out session all blown because of me, the grumpy troll that ruins shit in the backseat.

I watched her walk off. I felt my shoulders sag. “Why’d you say that for? We don’t need to talk about anything.”

He took out a cigarette and lit it, handed one to me. “Virgie’s nice and all, but…,” he shrugged.

I lit my cigarette and took a drag. “So, why’d you bring her here?”

He shook his head. “It’s what I’m supposed to do, ain’t it?” He looked over at me. “I mean, you oughtta know that by now.”

I nodded, agreeing.

“And besides,” he said, picking at the cuff of his shirt. “Her parents know mine, our mothers are in some dumb club together…,” He shrugged. “And Virgie’s sister, Betsy, would’ve married Freddie. If he’d been around to ask.”

I wondered what club Florrie Upton and Maritha Bowling could be in that my mother isn’t. Some sort of sewing society? That would make sense. “Everybody used to think it would be me and Polly Pingwell.” I flicked away some ash and examined the cherry on my cigarette. “And there’s all these dinners. My dad invites them.”

“Like some kind of meat market,” Gil muttered.

“It is,” I agreed.

We smoked our cigarettes in silence for a few minutes, listening to the distant giggles. Gil looked over at me with an odd smirk. “You remember this?”

“Remember what?”

“Coming here. Boy Scouts. Remember? Scoutmaster Flaherty took us?”

I started to worry about the time just then. Finny and I had a phone call and I didn’t want to miss it. And I have a faint memory of Scoutmaster Flaherty. I’m pretty sure he went to prison for robbing a hot dog stand in Selma. “A little bit, I guess. Do you know what time it is?”

He pulled a gold pocket watch out. “About ten. Why?” He gave me an amused smirk. “You gotta date?”

I felt my face flushing. “No. I just. Althea and I were going to listen to the midnight radio show…”

“I thought Althea was out with her girlfriends.”

“She is.” I cleared my throat. “She usually gets back the same time as me.”

Gil took a long drag. “You don’t have to make stuff up with me, Gene.” He looked at the other guys and leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “I know you’re worried your old man might be sore with you, but don’t worry, if he asks, I’ll say we studied all night.”

I finished my cigarette and tossed it out. “He wasn’t even home, so…”

“Really?” Gil grinned. “So, what’s the worry?”

I bit my lip and looked at him, leaning over the seat, chin on his arms, the last of his cigarette smoke swirling around his head. I tried to remember when we were Boy Scouts. I had a vague recollection of him behind me on a hike or beside me at a bonfire. I’m still not sure why we weren’t ever friends. Why can’t we be now?

And so I gave him a quick smile, a lump forming in my belly. “No worry. No worries at all.”

* * *

I like to hold his picture on my lap when we’re on the phone.

It adds something. It helps. I was never worried I’d forget what he looks like or anything, but to have that bright smile to look at when I wake up and before I go to sleep is, in his absolute favorite word of all, sensational.

But this evening, as Finny and I have our phone call, the weight of his picture on my lap is uncomfortable. I can feel it, coming all the way through the phone line, over a thousand miles away: the sting of disappointment.

“I’m really sorry,” I say for the fiftieth time. “I lost track of time.”

“I know. It’s okay.” He exhales over the line. “Like I said, it just worried me. That’s all. I’m glad you were okay.”

He’s not glad. I can hear it. By the time I got home last night he’d been waiting in Ludsbury’s study for over an hour. I called anyway, but he was long gone, most likely fretting over why I hadn’t called. The worry and annoyance he won’t admit to, that I most definitely caused, makes my heart ache.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I say. “I swear. Tomorrow night. Let’s talk all night. My mother’s in Atlanta and dad won’t know.”

“I can’t do that, Gene,” he sighs. “Ludsbury will be here.”

“He won’t be in his study in the middle of the night. I mean, we’ve seen that, you know?” I’m trying to conjure up the memory in hopes that the tender feelings will take the edge out of his voice. It’s subtle and he tries to keep his tone light, but I can hear it. He’s upset with me.

“That’s true,” Finny says. “But I’ve got an exam. I have to pass it to graduate. I really shouldn’t be up all night.”

I brush away a prick of dread. “I can help you study. Which class is it for?”

“History.”

“Perfect. Just bring your notes or whatever. I’ll help you.”

“Gene…”

“What?” My voice sounds small.

“We can just talk next Saturday. And you don’t need to help me. I’ve really been hitting the books.” His tone changes a bit; there’s a smile in it. “You’d be amazed at how much I sit at that desk now.”

“Really?” I smile, too, and my grip on the receiver loosens. I can picture it: him hunched over some books, lamplight on his face, brows furrowed in the way he gets when he’s concentrating or concerned. And maybe he gets restless and glances out the window, wanting to go outside and play blitzball. I can just see it.

“Yeah,” he says. “I want to ace all my exams. The sooner I do that, the sooner I can come to you.”

The relief I was starting to feel halts in its tracks. “Say, um…” I lick my lips nervously, twirl the phone cord around my fist. “Maybe you should wait. Like…maybe until I graduate, then we can figure it out.”

“Why? I want to be there with you.”

“I know, but…,” The phone cord tightens around my knuckles. “Don’t you want to spend time with your parents and Tabitha first? I’m sure they’ll want to spend time with you. Especially your sister.”

“Well, sure, naturally. And I will. I’ll have to sit down with them and tell them the truth anyway.”

“Yeah, but…could you wait a while? Just so they don’t get too upset with you, you know?”

“Gene, they’re going to feel however they feel. That doesn’t matter to me. I mean, sure, I don’t want them to hate me or you. But they’re my parents. I know they love me and want me to be happy. It might take them a while to get used to the idea - maybe they never will - but they’ve always taught me to be honest and live honestly. And that honest life for me is with you.” His voice gets soft. “And they’ll love you. They really will. I know it.”

His optimism makes my gut twist. And - dare I admit it - his bravery. I can’t believe he’s going to tell his folks about us and his little sister, too. Somewhere in my gut twist, there’s a sliver of the old envy. He has the kind of parents he can talk to, go to with problems, and I bet they drop everything to listen to him. He’s not afraid. I’m so far beneath him in this moment, I might as well be buried in dead Montgomery earth.

Because the truth is: I don’t want him to come see that dead Montgomery earth.

Not yet.

I need…time. I need… _something_. I need to make sure my father doesn’t see him and carry out his threat. I need to make sure Tanner doesn’t see him and say or do something worse. I need to make sure I’m away from St. Paul’s, away from here, and where and how would I even do this? It’s not something I can just say because really, I’m simply putting my cowardliness into words.

“Finny…,” I pause, take a breath. “Can’t you just wait?”

“Wait for what? I want to see you, I need to see you.” There’s desperation in his voice and pain. We’ve been separated for way too long. Why can’t we just make everything in this world disappear and reunite in the empty space? I feel his pain, I get his pain, but…

“I - I don’t - um…,” I pause again. “I don’t want - I don’t think -” Another pause. I swallow. “I don’t think you should come to Montgomery.”

There’s silence on the line for a moment or two. Then, “You want to just meet somewhere, then?”

Oh, God. I want to curl up like a grub worm and roll into a pile of dirt. “No, Finny. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that…we should wait. We should make sure before anyone leaves anywhere or before we start telling people that…it’s okay. That…we’re sure.”

His voice is quiet, slow. “Sure…about what?”

My heart starts to pound. I didn’t even know the words I thought had feelings or the feelings I felt had words. “You know this is different for me. It’s worse for me. And I can’t just - I can’t. It’s not the same for me as it is for you. Your family might still love you, but mine…please, can we just wait? Can we just be sure?”

There’s several moments of silence, but I know he’s there. I’d know his presence anywhere. Just like from the beginning, that first day, when he pulled me into his orbit like a sun. I’m thinking of that when he speaks again, of how much I want it and to feel it and have it all; but there’s something more powerful, heavier, closer. Breathing down my neck the hot, stinking breath of a bull.

“I don’t know what you mean, Gene.” His voice has an edge to it, takes on a tone like he’s having to defend his mother’s honor. “I’ve been sure about you since I met you. I’ve been sure about us since we kissed. I’ve been sure and ready to do anything for you since you left. So, you’ll excuse me, if I’m a little bit confused. What else is there to be sure about?”

I know what I should say. I know the right way to do this, the right way to handle it, and the absolute correct words to speak. Give me a test, to write it all out, I’d pass. Give me an essay. Set me down at a desk, time it, and when it’s over, when it’s pencils down, when they take up the composition booklets and the old wood creaks and your mind is empty from all you’ve pulled out of it, ask me the question: _are you sure?_ And I’d say yes. I’d say it a million times.

But now, here, in my family home, in the city of my birth, in the land of Forresters and Bowlings and Uptons and St. Paul’s boys; where we all like to pretend we didn’t descend from traitors, and we didn’t own human property and we just _didn’t._ That wasn’t _us_ ; the place you twist the truth, you revise history, and you come down hard on that snake called modernity. Here and now, I sit so stiff and I forget what to be sure about. Maybe where you are really matters; that’s what changes us.

“I can’t do it.” I croak out. “I can’t…I miss you so much and I love you so much, but I can’t. Do you know what would happen to me if they all knew? What would happen to you?” Tears threaten to fall and my voice gets all pinched and rough. “It’s impossible. It’s all impossible. I can’t enlist, but you’ll get drafted and then what? We do all this for nothing? I can’t do this, Finny. I just can’t.” The last word comes out all hoarse because I can’t hold back tears anymore, but one part of me feels like ice. This can’t really be what it is. This can’t really be what I say.

“I think we should talk about this later.” His voice is quiet, serious. “I don’t know what’s happened, but I don’t believe you really mean that. That you’d really want to give up on us. Not now.”

I take the receiver and press it against my shoulder for a second, get myself together. “So, like a break? Just some time.”

His voice is even softer. “If that’s what you want.”

My voice isn’t soft at all. “Fine. I’ll call you. Write you. Whatever.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Bye.”

As soon as the phone’s on the cradle, I double over. I feel sick, like how a heart attack must feel. I can’t catch my breath. I lay flat on the kitchen floor and pull at the collar of my shirt because it feels too tight. And the sleeves. I pull until I hear a rip and there’s a tear in the sleeve, and I keep tearing, precise, almost surgical until there’s a tear from wrist to elbow. I nuzzle my face there, feel my skin all cold and clammy, and I think I might die.

I’m really going to die. I’ll suffocate myself. I’ll die in the cold shadows the sun left when cowardly shadows blocked its light.

* * *

Lucky’s is known for serving St. Paul’s guys.

They’re also known for having illegal hooch during Prohibition and harboring bootleggers. The most notorious of them all in Montgomery - second to none except Grandpa DuBois in Baton Rouge - was Oswald “Wally” Parsons. Wally had an operation that went all the way to Pensacola, had no sense of smell from a mining accident when he was twelve, and may or may not have been a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a little guy, after all, only five-foot-five. There’s rumors he haunts the Alabama River, where his remains were supposedly thrown after a rival bootlegger from Mobile took him out, and one of his dames, Viola Marsh, stabbed a cop with her hat pin till he bled to death.

Viola Marsh’s picture is hanging up in Lucky’s as well as the allegedly real hat pin she used. The owner’s claim the holes in the back part, over the cellar door, are genuine bullet holes from a shoot out, but some professor from the University of Alabama examined them and said they’re just holes made by carpenter bees. Either way, Lucky’s is the place to go if your looking to revel in Prohibition lore and get liquor if your an underage St. Paul’s boy.

Also when you’re dying and your life is nothing but shit.

The guys working there seem to know Gil and get us a table in the corner. Before I can even blink, a glass of scotch is placed in front of me, and Gil orders a round of beers for us, too. I let both sit in front of me as I make a glance around us. Jeb, Bobby, Horse Shit Hands, and Gil discuss school matters - mostly insulting remarks about our instructors - while I feel like a fish out of water. I think about going to the beach with Finny and the beers we had. It was a day I felt so torn; perhaps the most divided I’d ever been. Wanting to be near him, to bask in the light he radiated, and yet I wanted to leave him behind. I wanted to leave him there alone, confused, and hurt. And to think - he loved me then. I feel ashamed of how I treated him, and the guilt weighs down because it shouldn’t matter now but it does. Why am I like this? I want to pull my reflection from every mirror, yank it through by the lapels, and ask, demand: _why are you like this?_ And would it be evil? Would it grin an evil grin and tell me some awful riddle about how I’m just a Forrester, I was born this way, and Finny suffers because of it. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth. I could be bleeding and I don’t care. It’s blood from my broken heart, coming up my throat to choke me, to kill me once and for all, because I don’t deserve -

“ _Gene._ ”

I snap my head over to Gil.

“Shit, you okay?” He asks. “You look funny.”

“Do I?” I realize Gil and I are at the table alone. Jeb and Bobby are dancing with some girls and Horse Shit Hands is hanging by the bar. I take the scotch and down it in one gulp.

Gil blinks. “You want another one?”

I nod and start guzzling my beer. I hope I choke on it.

I get another beer. Another scotch. I think there’s a third scotch in there somewhere. I start laughing. I come alive. I’m funny and I’m interesting. You wouldn’t think anything ever happened to me; that my life is just this easy breeze and I didn’t just turn yellow and cold in the face of the most selfless person ever born. You wouldn’t know. You really wouldn’t know that I cause all the accidents.

I’m fun. _Fun Gene._

And then things start happening in scenes; broken up film reels, edited in haste. The room gets blurry and Gil’s face gets fuzzy. It also gets close. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it. He tells me to be careful and then we’re all walking and everything looks crooked. I feel an arm curl around my waist.

“Practice,” I hear myself say.

“Do what?” Gil’s voice sounds way above me. Like on a pedestal.

“Practice. We need to practice.”

“Okay. I think you need to go home.” I realize it’s his arm around me. “Come on.”

“Practice first.”

“No, Gene, come on.” He begins steering me towards his car. “I’ll take you home.”

In the car, I stick my head out of the window and let the night air blast me in the face. I feel a hand on my shoulder, and then I’m asking Gil to pull over. He pulls off and I get out to vomit. He’s behind me, rubbing my back, and tells me to get it all out. I’ll feel better if I just get it all out. I vomit up my insides. I vomit up my heart and soul. I think I vomit up blood. After, I feel as if I could ingest a new heart and a new soul. New blood. I must not be real.

I smoke a cigarette sitting on the passenger seat, the door open and I’m sitting like I could get up and vomit again if I needed to. Gil kneels down in front of me and for the first time all night I realize - like really realize - it’s just me and him. It had seemed in my intoxicated stupor there were others with us. I almost thought I heard their voices.

I inhale and look at him. He’s clearer than he was. “I ruin things,” I say to him. “It’s really over. I ruined it.”

He looks at me for a second and then nods slowly, seriously. “It might be over. But somehow I don’t think you could ever ruin anything.”

He’s so solemn. So serious. He lays a hand on my right leg. I start wondering if I was that stupid. Did I blather in my drunkenness? Did I say stupid things? And I remember earlier…when I said we should _practice._

Then I start laughing.

I can’t help it. My shoulders shake, I slap my knee, and I’m practically hysterical. Gil stares at me with shock for a few seconds and then he cracks a smile and a guffaw bursts from his throat. And before long we’re both just laughing, stupid-laughing, on the side of Highway 9 late at night. If a cop pulled up now, may God have mercy on my soul.

He drives me home. I see the front door, and I slump down in the passenger seat like someone got in a good punch.

* * *

Saturday, I go out again.

We go to The Palace on Dexter and then Jeb joins us for a bit when we get to the dance hall on Perry. Cigarette smoke hangs thick in the air and I hold one between my fingers just so I can feel like a contributor. The only one of us that dances is Jeb and I can tell Richie wants to, eyeing the girls at the tables next to us, but with me there he wouldn’t dare. I’d be sure to tell Althea and even though I know she wouldn’t care at all, he doesn’t know that. I’m starting to feel sorry for him. Jesus, there’s really something wrong with me.

Gil leans towards me. “You feeling okay?” He has to shout over the music.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I shout back.

“What about your folks?”

He was concerned I’d gotten in trouble coming home drunk, but no one knew. Not even Althea. And dad’s on his way to Atlanta to join momma and Tanner. It’s like I’ve gotten some kind of furlough now that I’m hanging with Gil Upton.

“They’re fine,” I say to him. “Don’t worry about it.”

He raises his beer and I raise mine and we drink to that.

After a while, Horse Shit Hands, clearly frustrated by my presence, calls it a night and leaves. Gil stubs out his cigarette and leans towards me again. “You really want to watch this all night long?” He nods to Jeb dancing close to a lady who looks to be ten years his senior.

“Not really.”

Gil inclines his head to the door and I follow him out. We head out onto Perry and begin walking towards Dexter. I like the fresh air. I wonder if I should give in to all my natural inclinations, ancestral, passed down and down, and just be a selfish, cowardly lush. If the shoe fits…

“I never feel comfortable in places like that,” Gil says. He looks over at me. “You know?”

I shrug. “I’ve never really liked dancing.” Or being social. Or being brave. Or being decent in any way, shape, or form.

“It’s not really that.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and turns so he’s walking backwards in front of me. “You want to get a drink or something?”

Weren’t we just drinking? I catch a glimpse of the bank clock as we cross over Dexter. Only 10:15. “I don’t have a draft card or anything. Not anymore.” My voice cracks at the end. For a second, I’m terrified I might cry.

“I know a place,” he smiles.

I don’t want to cry, or think about things that will make me cry, or just think at all so I tell him okay and he takes us past the fountain down Court Street.

Montgomery typically slows around nine, but there are people still out and about being it’s a Saturday night. A group of girls and guys pass us, arms linked. A few guys wearing Alabama State sweaters walk by us. There’s the occasional drunk on the street corner, but once we turn down Scott the streets darken and I’m in unfamiliar territory.

“Where are we going?” I ask Gil.

“You’ll see,” he says with a knowing smile.

He takes us to a brick building, neat and square, set off from the road by a high hedge. We walk down a set of gated stairs, and I hear the unmistakable notes of a trumpet and brass band behind the door. He presses his finger into a buzzer and after a few seconds the door opens. I’m still standing on the steps, and I can’t see who’s on the other side. Gil nods to them then nods to me. An older man pokes his head out and looks me over. He holds the door open to let Gil inside and I hesitate for only a second before I follow him.

We walk into open space, almost like a cellar, except there are tables and chairs, a long counter with liquor behind it, and in the farthest corner from the door is a space with nothing but a record player and a few couples dancing. It takes me a few seconds, my eyes adjusting to the lighting, smoky air, and the glare of a spotlight towards a tiny empty stage to see that all the couples are men.

I stop short. Some of the men are in uniform. Clearly from Maxwell Air Force Base and a few in Army green. Some are dressed in regular suits and ties hanging loose and they’re dancing just as close as Jeb and that lady at the dance hall. I can’t do a thing except stand there and stare. I feel Gil’s hands on my shoulders as he steers me towards the counter.

“You want a drink?” He asks simply.

I turn to him and blink for the first time since I’ve walked in.

He smirks and asks for two beers. I see that that the guy behind the counter isn’t a guy at all. He’s a woman dressed like a man. She hands us our beers, Gil gives her some cash, and I can feel him watching me as my gaze involuntarily shifts back to the dancing couples. I’ve never seen two men dance before like that in my life. I can’t tear my eyes away.

I turn to Gil. “What…? Is this a - is this for -?”

“You know exactly what this is.”

“But…how did - why - ?”

“You really don’t remember?” He shakes his head at me and smiles. “Scoutmaster Flaherty took us down the Alabama River that one summer. Remember? We were sitting on the rocks.”

My head is spinning, and I try to slow it long enough to think back.

The Alabama River. I was thirteen. We were supposed to be learning things. Outdoor things. The only things I remember learning was that Scoutmaster Flaherty’s socks were always covered in briers and how to spot a crayfish in a stream. I remember some of the other boys holding up triangle-shaped rocks, claiming them to be arrowheads. I remember watching a tugboat going under the Montgomery Bridge. I remember some of the boys talking about the finger-shaped island across the way and actually believing there was pirate treasure on it.

And Gil and the rocks…we sat on them by the water. We each took blades of grass and stuck them between our thumbs and blew on them to make whistling noises, except I couldn’t make mine whistle. Gil watched me with the same face he has now, but it was rounder, younger, eyes the color of slate. And then he did something, I remember now, he leaned over and put his lips on my cheek. His eyelashes tickled and I dropped the blade of grass on my knee. His lips were moist and warm and he pulled away from me and sat back against the rock, fiddling with some twigs. I felt his spit where his lips had been, like a stray raindrop hitting my skin. I crossed my arms over my lap. I watched a rat snake slither out of a hole and into some underbrush.

Gil threw the twigs into the water. He chewed his lip, looked down at his shoes. “Maybe we can go fishing sometime. Down by the bridge.”

I didn’t want to wipe off his spit. I let it dry in the air and then I leaned over to him, grabbed one of his hands, slid one of his fingers into my mouth, ran my tongue all over it, and pulled it out. I quickly got up and walked away, back towards the rest of the troop, holding one hand over my mouth like I’d cussed in front of my mother. That night in the tent, when Scoutmaster Flaherty went out for a smoke, Gil moved his sleeping bag next to mine. We lay there on our backs, wide awake, our knees touching through the fabric. We talked about fishing, real low, underneath all the other whispered chatter around us, until Scoutmaster Flaherty came back in and told us all to hush up and go to sleep.

Then that was it. We never went fishing or did anything. I saw him at a birthday party that summer, but I ignored him. There was no reason. I wasn’t ashamed of what I did or what he did. I just…didn’t want to talk to him. And eventually, I forgot all about him and what we’d done.

Until now.

Oh Dear Sweet Lord.

How did I not know, even then, long before Devon and Finny? It was so obvious, wasn’t it? So clear. Christ, did I think all boys did those things?

I look over at Gil. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never spoke to you after. I don’t know why I did that.”

He looks me over carefully, sets down his beer. He grabs my hand and leads me over to the dance floor. I feel the skin on my back pull tight, paranoia at being seen, being watched and I don’t know where to put my hands. Last time I danced like this was at Althea’s cotillion. It was with Caroline and she blabbed and I watched Richie’s wandering Horse Shit Hands on my twin sister. And now I see another pair of wandering hands on two fellas from Maxwell. They’re so close, I think they might kiss. I feel as if I’m watching something I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. There’s heat pooling in my stomach at the sight of it. At a corner table, I see two women sitting close together. One a blond with quite a pompadour and the other is dressed in uniform like a man. She French inhales and leans back against the blond lady, smiling.

“It’s okay.” Gil’s breath is in my ear. “We can do this here.” He wraps an arm around my waist. It just curls around. Like a vine. I swallow and he smiles. An old Billie Holiday floats through the air as he sways me into step with him and then I relax. I put one hand on his shoulder and he holds the other one out like he might twirl me around. The feeling on the back of my neck doesn’t go away; hair prickling like sensors for danger.

“It’s okay,” he reassures.

I don’t know where to look. At Gil. At the Maxwell fellas. At any of the other men dancing around us like this is perfectly normal. Perfectly imperfect. At the handful of women, either at the tables or dancing near us. Two ladies in gingham dresses kiss each other tenderly and I feel a flush upon my skin. I look away and my eyes find Gil’s.

I laugh nervously. “This is…this is really -”

“Weird?” He smiles.

“Just…different. I feel like somebody’s going to say something.”

“Just me.” He smiles wider. “To you.”

I look around us again and find it’s odd to be in the middle of something and not the center of attention. It’s not like I didn’t think places like this existed. They just seemed far off, in some fantasy-land-big-city. Certainly not here.

“And I feel like,” I say, swallowing again. “That everybody knew about me even before I did.”

“That right?” Gil pulls me closer. I don’t resist. “Like who?”

“Althea. You. Maybe Tanner.” I shake my head. “I don’t understand how. Or why. I mean, with you it makes sense.”

And then he leans his cheek against mine. I close my eyes. I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s thrilling. It’s freeing. It’s…missing something.

“I thought about that day every night for months,” he whispers to me. His breath is so warm against my earlobe. I feel sweat begin to prickle on my lower back where his hands rest. He takes his cheek from mine and his slate-colored eyes peer directly into mine. No nonsense, no bullshit. “And I’ve been wanting to be with you ever since.”

Before I can say a word, before I can even blink, he leans forward and kisses me. Parts of my body begin to hum and warm from the lack of physical contact, but I grab his shoulders and gently pull myself away, breaking the kiss.

He traces a thumb over my lips. “Don’t tell me I pegged you all wrong now.”

My voice comes out a hushed breath. “You didn’t.”

He leans forward again, putting his lips by my ear, his breath warm and tingling. “Spend the night with me, Gene Forrester.”

I feel a rush of blood to the parts of me that haven’t been touched by hands other than mine in a long time. Too long. It becomes incredibly, painfully obvious as I begin to feel the beginning of an erection. I’m not thinking straight. I’m thinking like a Forrester. I’m thinking like a young man on the precipice.

But I don’t love Gil. I hardly know Gil. And what happened when we were thirteen doesn’t mean anything should happen now. But he’s here…we’re here…it doesn’t really mean anything.

I look at him standing close, warm body, lips, eyes.

There’s only one answer I can give.


	17. Chapter 17

I’ve never been in a St. Paul’s dorm.

Compared to Devon, they’re “warmer” somehow. You could sense at Devon the place was designed by uptight academics who were used to piles of snow and icy Easters. Hard angles, cool undertones, stiff and high-backed, creaking and unyielding, every piece of Devon - from our beds to our desks - divulged the inner thoughts of their creators. God and Devil in constant battle; crops destroyed by frost; the self-denial, the superstition.

St. Paul’s was designed by Confederates before there was a Confederacy. The intricate designs in the trim; warm mahogany, cherry, and oak; tall windows, white-washed, and plaster ceilings - all the markers of slave labor. The designers of St. Paul’s didn’t need to cut corners, budget, or sweat out the long summers constructing frames and laying bricks. They sat at long tables under tents, sipping juleps and sun tea, while the work was done in the high heat of the day by those they brought over in chains.

As I enter Gil’s dormitory, I lay a hand on the door frame. I can practically feel the sweltering heat of long ago dampening my palm. It’s such a contrast. Wooden-framed beds, built-in bookcases, ceiling fans, and antebellum art adorning the walls. I feel transported, one foot in the Devon world, one foot in the St. Paul’s. It’s like I’m straddling distance and time simultaneously.

Gil notices my hesitation at the door. He gives me a half smile. “Gonna stand in the open door, eh? Whatta show that’ll be.”

I take my hand away from the frame and slowly enter. I shut the door behind me. I look around and see there’s only one bed. “You don’t have a roommate?”

“I used to.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “Dad pays extra for me to have my own room. It’s easier. Less…distractions.” There’s an emphasis on that last word that leaves something to be desired. He sits down on the bed. So much to be desired…

I sit down next to him. I clear my throat. He looks down at our feet; a shyness comes over him as all that bravado from earlier seems to disappear. He’s more like Gil On the Rocks.

There’s silence between us for a bit, and it starts to feel like the weight of some scaly animal, slipping out of my grip, a fish uncaught. “Um,” I begin. “The rooms here are awful nice. Lots of space, looks like.”

He shifts his eyes over to me.

“They weren’t like this at my old school. Drafty. Big windows, you know?”

He slips his pinky finger over mine.

“We couldn’t get our own rooms,” I blab. “I don’t think. And if we could, my dad wouldn’t have paid extra. I mean, with that much money he might as well have sent me here.”

He scoots closer to me.

I want to look at him, but I can’t. I want to see his expression, but I’m embarrassed. I feel as if I’m already naked in front of him and he’s disappointed with what he sees. I can’t even look him in the eye. He’ll see things. He’ll know things. He can’t cover it up so no one else will see.

In my periphery, I notice him watching me. I slowly turn my head to him and make myself look. He’s no thirteen-year-old kid anymore. He was all knees and elbows back then, gangly and unsure like a foal learning to walk. And he has a scent so familiar to me - the scent of old wealth. The smell of oiled up leather, velvet curtains, and polished silver. Fine china, starlit walks under the magnolias, and spiced tobacco. His face is hard angles and there’s a bit of scruff on his chin. Thick brown hair parted on the side and an Adam’s apple bump in his neck. He’s still tall, his limbs still long, but they’ve thickened into the limbs of a man. I swallow as I think of it; of how much time has passed and do I look different? What did he see back then and what does he see now?

I lean forward and touch my lips to that bump in his throat. He makes a sound there, lays a hand on my shoulder. I pull away and look down at our knees, touching.

“I missed you. When you left,” he says quietly. “Boy Scouts, that is.”

“They couldn’t take me anymore,” I whisper back. “Tanner had track meets. Then he started basic training. So…”

“So,” he slips his hand over mine. I slip my fingers through his and his and mine curl into a fist, knuckles rubbing, tight.

I suck in a breath and he turns my head. His eyes go from my forehead to my mouth before he leans in to kiss me. And I kiss him back.

After two seconds of it, I feel let down. It’s not the same. My mind is empty, my blood lukewarm, and it’s just a kiss. Flesh and teeth, tongue and lips. I make a sound in my throat, I’m disappointed, but he takes it the wrong way. His tongue pushes into my mouth, probing and seeking. I wrap my arms around his back and pull him against me to get something, to feel something. I’m lying. I’m pretending.

Gil breaks the kiss and looks at me, breathing hard.

“How did,” I stammer a little and steady my voice. “How did you want to do this?”

He gives me a long look and slides one hand down to my belt. He unhooks it, unbuttons me, he gets off the bed and down on his knees.

Ah. So that’s how.

_Holy shit._

Gil looks up at me as he lifts up my shirt. I try to pretend I’m not shaking. He begins kissing above the waistband of my underpants and then suddenly the thought of coming in the mouth of the sole Upton heir sends a blaze of lust through me that might just burn me alive. He pulls my underpants down, revealing my arousal. I move closer to the edge of the bed, slip my fingers into his hair, stiff with pomade. I want to come in his mouth, and I want him to come in mine. Then I can be done with him. Then I can just go. That’s all it has to be. The thought of it drives me absolutely insane. I’m so hard, it hurts, and the bastard is a teaser and I want to get it over with. I want what I want.

He kisses below my navel, on my hip, and in that blaze of lust I begin to hear something. A desperate plea, a cry. The baleful knell of a warning. It gets louder the closer Gil gets and it’s a belief, a chant. Telling me over and over that it’s got me and that _I’m good, I’m good, I’m good_.

The blaze begins to snuff out, struggling and suffocating.

His lips feel cold as he kisses my hip bone over and over.

“Gil.” My voice is shaking.

His thumb is on my other hip bone, stroking.

“Gil.” My voice is steady. _Sure._

He stops and leans his head against me. Everything between us goes from roaring blaze to soggy wetness.

I look away from him. It feels cold in here. Like someone just pulled a blanket off me. “I can’t do this.”

He’s got one hand on my right leg and there’s a dull throb just beginning underneath it.

“I can’t, Gil.”

He sits back on his heels and sighs. “I’m sorry, Gene. It’s just there’s only been one other time before this, and -”

“It’s not that.” I adjust myself and get my pants back up. I reach down and help Gil to his feet. His face is flushed, his eyes downcast.

I don’t know how to put it. “There’s…someone.”

Gil looks at me, blinks.

It’s my turn to look down. “I can’t do this to him. I’m sorry. I thought…I don’t know what I thought, but I can’t do this to him.”

He turns from me and sits on his bed. It’s quiet for a minute or two. Long enough for me to consider leaving, apologizing for ruining his evening, and just walking home.

“I guess I should’ve known,” he says finally, “when you came back there’d be some fella.” He looks at me curiously. “Who is it? It’s not Camden, is it?”

I make a face. “Horse Shit Hands?! No. _God,_ no." I shake my head emphatically. “He’s at my old school. It’s been difficult with him all the way up there and me down here. And it’s not his fault. We had an argument the other night. I mean, it wasn’t really an argument. It was just me. Me being stupid. Or…I don’t know. And sometimes I just do things or I’ll say things and…I just miss him. God, I miss him so much.” I pause and close my eyes. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear all this.”

He shifts next to me. “What do you mean you were being stupid? What happened?”

I look at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Seriously.” He flicks his eyes away from me. “I mean if you want to talk about it. Don’t have to.”

“Okay…um.” I try to explain it to him as best I can, but I find that I’m not sure what exactly happened myself. I know what I said. I know what I was thinking, but putting it into words for another person sounds unsure; missing pieces. So, I tell him about Finny’s intentions to tell his family about us and his desire for me to do the same. “But I can’t,” I say to Gil. “I just can’t do it. You know what it’s like for us. And how would you feel if the fella you were in love with wanted you tell your father? It’s like you said: it’s all the attention and knowing it would all be gone. And not to mention what my father would do to me. And to him, too. Don’t you worry about that? Do you think about that, too?”

Gil shrugs. “I suppose I just think about getting my kicks where and when I can. And the rest of it…,” he shrugs again. “What my old man doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Or me.”

“But he expects you to marry. Have kids.”

Gil grins. “Only if I meet the right girl, which I never will. So, it’s really a waiting game. Waiting my dad out until he’s too old and senile to care.”

“That could take forever.”

“It might, but I know myself and I know what’s expected of me. I reckon it comes down to what’s more important to you.” He looks at me intently. “And for you, it’s that fella of yours, sounds like. Ain’t he important to you?”

“Of course he is.”

“Then all your problems are solved. Tell your momma and dad, they throw you out, you get to be together.”

“And then I never see Althea or Randy ever again.”

“Not if they really care about you. If I told my old man tomorrow and he forbade my sisters to speak to me, Evie and Susan wouldn’t listen. And besides, your old man can only run you and your sibling’s lives for so long. You grow up and they grow old. It’s the way things are.”

I’m not sure if I agree with Gil’s logic and acceptance. I can’t possibly see Clyde Upton simply tapping his foot impatiently while his one and only heir takes his sweet time choosing a bride. And telling momma and dad would mean much more than rejection. That I can deal with, sadly. But dad could take it further. He’s seen Finny. My mother has, too. They could have me sent away to an asylum and Finny arrested for “molesting” me. Even if Finny and I ran away again, couldn’t they have the cops track us down again? And this time I’d get worse than a punch in the face…

I glance at Gil, his expression full of concern and helpfulness. I feel selfish. This isn’t what he expected from me. I sigh and shake my head. “I’m sorry I had you bring me all the way back here. I wanted to, and then…”

“Don’t apologize. I wouldn’t want you to be with me for any reason other than you wanted to.” He looks around the room. “I just couldn’t believe it when you came back to Montgomery. I was worried you wouldn’t want to speak to me or wouldn’t remember me at all.” Then he looks at me, his smile wistful. “You were hard for me to ever forget, especially that day by the river.”

I bite my lip, thinking. “How did you know? When you kissed me, how did you know I wouldn’t hit you or something?”

“I didn’t.”

“And you did it anyway.”

Another wistful smile. “Some things are worth risking a bloody nose over.”

I bring my fingertips to my own nose in memoriam.

“Say,” he says. “What did you call Camden? Horse Shit what?”

I laugh and explain it to him. Before long we’re both laughing like old pals, like the kind of old pals we should have been all along. It’s a relief, really, and to think I came here for other reasons. To think what I almost did…I can’t seem to stop getting into situations where I _almost._

As the joking and laughter dies down, we look at each other warily. We speak at the same time.

“I’m sorry, Gene, if I -”

“I really hope that -”

We both snicker and he nods at me.

“I was just going to say,” I tell him, “that I hope we can be friends. Good friends. And you’ll keep my secrets. I promise I’ll keep yours.”

He looks down at his feet with a smile then back up to me. “Of course we can be friends. Always.”

It’s an echo, a near carbon-copy. It’s Gil’s voice, but the echo is Finny’s. In my mind, in my heart, and when I think of how close I came to betraying him, tears well up in my eyes.

Gil pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and sits with me, one hand on my shoulder, while all that Forrester poison, all that muck and blight and itch and mess drains from my eyes into the handkerchief of an Upton boy, in an Upton boy’s room, and somewhere - within six feet of earth - Erastus and Rufus are turning in disdain.

* * *

I get home just as the sun is coming up.

Gil waits in the car to make sure it’s okay, but no one is up yet. I give him a wave, he drives off, and I go up to my room. Everyone’s still in bed, but I open my closet and dig through all the mess at the bottom as quietly as possible. It’s just a bunch of stuff; stuff I don’t remember or don’t want to remember, and I find a one of my mother’s old hatboxes I sneaked out of her closet when I was a kid. I open it to find all the things I used to treasure. Rocks from the pond, flat and smooth; a birthday party favor from Althea shaped like a rabbit; a book about the oceans; and the picture. I lift the frame and look.

Boy Scout picture.

Right by the Alabama River. It could have been taken that very day.

I find Gil and me, off to the left, where I sit sullenly in the front and he sits on a rock behind me. I hadn’t noticed or maybe I’d just forgot: his hand is on my shoulder. It’s just resting there, friendly-like. You wouldn’t know it could mean anything else. You wouldn’t know the moment we shared. You wouldn’t know I walked away from him and then right back four years later. I laugh. I laugh out loud. I clutch the picture to my chest and feel something like relief, clarity, the end and the beginning and I am someone.

Somebody’s someone.

And somebody’s friend.

* * *

I feel a nudge on my foot.

I grumble something and ignore it. Another nudge. I lift my head to bright sunlight and turn to see Randy standing over me.

He tilts his head. “Did you fall?”

I squint my eyes to the sun coming in through my windows and look around me. I’m on the floor with the hatbox beside me and a balled up shirt under my head.

“What time is it?” I ask him, too lazy to turn to my clock.

“Almost lunchtime,” he replies.

_Almost. Shit, shit, and double shit_. Last night’s _almost_ practically knocks the wind out of me. I want to crawl under the hatbox. Randy doesn’t seem to notice. I stretch and sit up.

“You want me to bring you up some?” He asks.

I look at him, but I don’t really see him. “Huh?”

“Cause you’re not feeling well. Althea said you’re sick.”

I huff. “Did she now.”

“Uh-huh.” He turns. “I’ll go get your lunch.”

“No.” I stand and rub my head. “It’s okay, pal. Don’t worry about it.”

I go down the hall to Althea’s room. She and I shared a room until we were out of the crib. It was the room Randy sleeps in now and used to belong to one of Missouri Minerva’s ladies maids. I’m not going to say it’s haunted, but I’m also not going to say it isn’t. Because I don’t think cruelty like that ever actually goes away. It reverberates through time, absorbs into the wood, the stone, and gets under your skin.

It’s creepy in there, at the very least. You always feel like you’re being watched. One morning, Althea said she found Randy asleep in the parlor. He said he came downstairs after a hand came out of the closet door and beckoned to him. Momma said pish-posh and made a crying Randy stand in the closet to see there was nothing in there. Dad told him it was a dream and not to cry. _Be a man, Randolph. Men don’t cry._

Well. That takes me out of the running.

I was too little to remember much about that room when we were in it. Our mother used to mutter to Aunt Faye about how we’d cry if she tried to separate us and we got fussy when she put us in separate cribs. She brought in a nanny I don’t remember to help her because dad didn’t lift a finger and Tanner was too busy being perfection on two legs. I think he tried to help sometimes. One of my earliest memories is of him. There’s no detail really, but just an awareness of him, his voice, my hand in his and Althea’s in his other one. We had to have been walking by then and he was walking and I looked up at him.

I looked up.

I knock on Althea’s door, but then I just barge in because she does it to me. She’s standing by her closet, holding a red dress up to a navy blue dress when I walk in. Being the only girl, she got a bigger closet. She also got the room with the bigger windows that overlook the crepe myrtles. On sunny days, her room is the most cheerful and on clear nights, you can see the lights from downtown Montgomery in the distance.

“Hey,” she snaps. “You ever hear of knocking?”

“I have,” I reply and sit down on her bed.

She hangs the dresses up and comes over to me, hands on hips. “You actually want to come chat with your sister, Mr. Popularity? It’s been a while.” She’s being sassy, but there’s a smile in her eyes.

I don’t crack a smile back. I look at her with all seriousness. “I need to tell you something.”

“Oh.” She frowns at my expression. She pulls the chair from her vanity over in front of me. “Okay. What is it?”

Something inside me feels strangely new. Like a baptism. But it’s so new, so fragile, that it staggers on young limbs, like a foal learning to walk. I feel as if all I’ve ever done and said has been rolled out on a carpet in front of me.

I look down at her purple bedspread and trace a fingernail around a flower. “You remember when I fell out of that tree?”

“No. Not at all.” She says sardonically.

I roll my eyes. “I’m serious, Althea.”

“All right, fine. Yes, I remember when you fell.”

I stop tracing and put both hands in my lap. “It wasn’t an accident.”

She waits for a beat. “What was it then?”

I sigh. I look up at her and this feels even worse than it could ever feel with anyone else. Even with Finny. Maybe it’s because she’s a girl. Maybe it’s because we spent nine months all crammed up together and there will never be anyone on this planet that knows me like her. Genetically, familiarly, twinningly.

I look down at my hands. “The first time he got me to climb that tree, I didn’t want to. I was really scared, it was so high up, and he wasn’t scared at all.” I clear my throat. “So it became this thing: climb the tree and jump off into the river. And he made up a whole club around it. You had to jump out of the tree to be in it. And every time I was scared, but I did it anyway. Everybody was watching us. And I didn’t want to be left out.”

I stop for a moment or two and Althea’s quiet, still.

“And so, that day,” I continue. “He was going to jump before me. I waited until he got to the edge of the branch. I didn’t want anyone to see and we were so high up.” I pause and chew my bottom lip. “So, I bent my knees and that’s when I fell.” I wait a few seconds. “I was going to shake the branch and knock him off. But it was me instead.”

I let that settle in. We sit there for a long while, neither of us saying a word. In the distance, I hear a train whistle. Birds chirp and the sound of pots and pans in the kitchen echos up the stairs. Althea shifts in the chair. It creaks.

“I don’t know why,” I say. ”I really don’t. Because I really admired him. He was so perfect, and could just fit into any situation, any conversation. He had everything. And I was nothing at that school. Not like him, but he really liked me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t get it.” I look back down at the flowers on her bedspread. “I don’t know what changed, from when I wanted to knock him out of a tree to loving him. I don’t know if that makes me crazy or what. I thought it was good it happened, you know? It was good. I deserved it. It’s the cowardly thing to do to someone.” My voice gets a little louder. I start talking a little faster. “And I don’t deserve him. It killed me, it really did, when he just forgave me for all of that. I told him when we ran off. And he wants to make all these sacrifices for me, he wants to tell his family about us, come all the way here, and I couldn’t let him do it. Because _I_ can’t do it. That’s some shit, isn’t it?”

She looks at me, her eyes pitying.

“And I’m telling you all this,” I add quickly, “because you should know. In case I really go and do something I can’t ever make up for. You should know what a coward I am -”

“Gene -” she starts and I interrupt.

“No, seriously. And maybe you’re not like me. Maybe you didn’t get that, or inherit that, or whatever. So at least one of us came out good.”

She sits quietly for a minute or two, and I feel like how Jonah must have felt emerging from the belly of the whale. After a few minutes of her unnerving silence, I get up to leave.

“How’d you know he wasn’t scared?” She asks when I get to the door.

I turn. “Do what?”

“You said he wasn’t scared climbing that big old tree. How could you tell?”

I look at her funny, a little surprised by her questions. “I - I don’t know. I guess because he was smiling and he didn’t seem scared.”

“But you don’t really know that, do you?”

I think about it for a second. I think about his expression climbing up, turning to grin at me, but then he’d turn away toward the river. I couldn’t see his face, much less hear any thoughts he had. “No. I guess not.”

I wait for her to say more, but she gets up and goes to look out her window. I go stand beside her, and I see Randy laying under the crepe myrtles having a fit. But this time instead of flailing on the ground, he kicks at the base of one with the soles of his shoes. Then he jumps up on his feet and starts shaking the branches till a few of the blossoms fall off, shouting out something I can’t understand.

I look over at her and she doesn’t seem to be watching. She’s looking out at the clouds, a small smile on her lips.

“Why aren’t you…I don’t know…mad?” I ask her.

She tilts her head. “I was just thinking. Tanner’s coming home the week after next. That’ll be nice.”

“What?”

She turns to me, her eyes imploring. “Will you consider, when Tanner comes home, making peace with him?”

I stare at her, feel my jaw tighten. “What are you talking about?”

She steps closer to me, lays a hand on my shoulder. “Isn’t that what you just told me? That you were afraid Phineas would get everything. And you’d get…nothing?” She peers into my face, her gaze intent, searching for understanding.

My stomach twists in a knot and my heart jumps in my chest.

“It doesn’t have to be who gets what, Gene. Who’s good or who’s bad.” She squeezes my shoulder. “And it doesn’t have to be who’s scared to jump out of a big old tree. And who isn’t.”

And I see it: this is exactly like before. Finny going fearlessly into the unknown, or at least I perceived it that way. Did I really think he didn’t see how high he was from the ground? Did I really believe he hadn’t calculated the risk? And did I really know he wasn’t scared?

And that he’s not scared now?

I never wanted to end up with nothing. And here it circles back and if I don’t do something, I just might.

She smiles at me. She goes back to her closet and pulls out her dresses. I stare at the back of her. I didn’t really think he’d get… _everything._ Did I? And where in _the living hell_ does she get this stuff?

I turn to go, but I stop at her door. I turn back to her.

“You’re wasted in this house, Althea.” I say to the back of her head. “You’re wasted in this town, in this family. You’re better than all this, better than a pretend-marriage to Richie Camden with a girl on the side.” I pause there, take a breath. She stands so still, a navy blue dress dangling from a hanger in her hand. “If I make peace with Tanner, will you promise me something?”

She doesn’t turn around. “What?”

“Leave here. Don’t stay here. Don’t marry here. We’ll be eighteen next year. Get on a train. Please don’t stay here. Don’t make Montgomery your home.”

She lowers her head.

“And I want you to know something else.”

She turns to look at me.

“It’s a damn good thing you were born first. I think you had to be, so you could guide me.”

Tears spring up in her eyes and she smiles. “I think so too, Gene. I think so, too.”

I give her a quick hug and leave with my hands shaking and my mind made up.

* * *

I stay in my bedroom all day and night with paper and pen.

I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to _un_ destroy something. I feel like I don’t even know how to write anymore as I scrawl out a letter to Finny. If I have to scribble out more than a couple of words, I just ball up the paper and throw it away. I hate that I have to keep apologizing and he has to keep forgiving - if he’ll even forgive me this time - and still, as I write it all out, as I explain to him how I feel, I can’t promise him the one thing I know will make this right.

It’s not him, it’s me. I’m forcing him to consider my life and my feelings, when shouldn’t the only thing that matters be him? Him and me together?

But that’s the problem: if I choose him, it’s forever. That’s _it._ _That’s_ what it is. If I choose him, I lose all of this. It’ll all be gone. And as much as this family, this Forrester legacy has cursed me, held me down, underpinned my very thoughts and feelings, words and deeds, it would be a great loss. A gaping hole.

When could I see Althea again? Or Randy? If it’s like Gil says, they’d find a way to speak to me, write to me. I know Althea would. But him? What would he think of me? His big brother running off with another fella? Would he hate me? Would he be ashamed of me? I couldn’t bear it if it got around town and caused trouble for him. The conversations spin around and around in my mind like a record:

_Did you hear? That Forrester boy ran off with another boy! He’s a fairy! Can you believe it? Herman and Leticia ought to be ashamed! It’s that new fangled radio is what it is. All that jazz music and the radios. Puts thoughts in our young people’s heads! Back in my day we wouldn’t have put up with such. All this nonsense and Yankees coming down here with all their ideas. Why, they ought to throw him in that place upstate! They’ll straighten him out!_

Oh God. Would Randy be teased? Would people be suspicious of him? And all because of me?

But if I choose all this over Finny, then that’s _really it._ I couldn’t take the pain. I couldn’t take it if he wasn’t just a letter away, a phone call, all with the hope that he’ll be in my arms again. One day. One day, dear God, we’ll get it right. I’d be nothing without him. I’d be no one’s someone. I’d be invisible. A gambler, a drunk, there’d be no hope, because, by God, he _is_ my hope.

I want both. I don’t want to lose anything. I don’t want anyone else to have it all, and I get nothing. It keeps me up at night. I pace my room from wall to wall, back and forth, back and forth. I steal cigarettes from my mother and smoke them under the crepe myrtles. My lungs ache, my mouth is dry, and my stomach is sick.

I want both.

Is there a way? Could there be?

Late one night, I finish my letter to Finny. I number each page in the top right hand corner. I stack the papers together and fold them up in thirds. I tuck them into an envelope, lick the flap, write the address, his name, lick the stamp. _Stamped and sealed._

Inside that envelope is all I know. All I can say, what I can feel, how to _un_ destroy. I beg him, plead with him, to understand. I admit, I confess, I lay it all out like I’ve been turned inside out, skinless and sorry.

I want to be enough. I want to be everything he’s ever wanted.

And I want him to be mine.

4ever.

* * *

Dad comes home a few days before Tanner.

He oversees the contractors out front as they dig up the sidewalk and build a concrete ramp for Tanner’s wheelchair. They bypass the antebellum-style front steps with a curvy slab of the hard stuff and a railing. They stand in our front yard with sweat stains and cigarettes dangling. They wear big hats and turn brown in the sun. They eat lunch on the back of a pickup and don’t wash their hands. I’m fascinated. I wonder if I could be one of them. Hard and dirty and working. I could go home to a one bedroom bungalow on the west side with bad plumbing and peeling wallpaper. I’d die young, with honor, with gnarled hands that kept me in good stead. But they’re gone at the end of the day. That half-life is over. They rope everything off and promise to come back tomorrow to see about the stairs inside the house.

And I’m still Gene. Gene Forrester. I’m clean, and soft, and book smart.

It’s like we’re preparing for a king, and I guess in some ways we are. This was supposed to be Tanner’s kingdom, and if my father didn’t intend on him having a piece of it, then he wouldn’t be going through this trouble. It surprises me, but it doesn’t. There’s still a desire there to keep Tanner in his role. Still a want to keep my Mighty Marine Brother from the reality of his future. I can’t seem to find blame in anyone anymore.

I sit out on the porch with dad and Randy the afternoon the contractors finish pouring and molding all the concrete. Dad gets up every few minutes to inspect it, as if it’s something easily screwed up and that can only be remedied by his frowning gaze.

“What are you going to do with the stairs in the house?” I ask him as he sits back down.

“Don’t know yet,” my father replies, wiping off some sweat from his face. “I reckon we ought to see how much putting in some kind of lift would cost.”

I think about Tobias Forrester rising from his grave, arrow in his eyeball, a horror to behold, to slit the throats of any contractors that try to tear up his original wood floors.

My father looks at me, his lips pursed in thought, before he says, “You been thinking about colleges, Eugene?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Randy slink away and go inside. It’s about to become one of _those_ conversations.

“A little bit,” I lie.

“Course the choice is ultimately yours,” my father says, “but at Tulane, you’re likely to get the best treatment. Forrester legacy and all.”

I am dismayed to feel a tiny burst of pride inside me. “I’ve thought about it,” I lie again. “Might go back up north. Maybe Boston.”

Dad makes a face. “Maybe. Maybe it’s best to stick closer to home.”

I don’t push it. I watch as the foreman comes up on the porch to talk with my father. I stare at his dirty hands, and I wonder if I could leave home for school without any problems. But it’s as sure as the sunrise that my father is afraid I might not come back. There seems to now be an unspoken truce between us: I don’t wander too far off, cause problems, or cause a ruckus, and he’ll leave me alone and let me go out with my St. Paul’s friends. He’s stopped asking for the mail even.

Not that it matters. Finny hasn’t written me back yet or called.

I know the mail is slow these days, but it’s been almost two weeks. I can change from hour to hour. I can feel okay, just fine, accepting of what I’ve done and said, and in a hot minute, I’m struck with a terror so great it feels as if my heart might stop completely. It’s Finny or it’s my family. That’s what it comes down to. They cannot coexist.

My father sits back down, looking over a yellow invoice. He folds it up and sticks it in his pocket. “I was thinkin’.” He rocks a little in the chair. “We ought to take the car out one Sunday, teach you how to drive.”

I scrape a fingernail over the wood of the rocking chair. They’ve been here since Grandpa Forrester was a boy. He said Great-Grandpa Forrester bought them from a Yankee who set up shop downtown when he was a kid. Ordinarily, Great-Grandpa Forrester wouldn’t be caught dead buying anything from a Yankee, but the fella was quite a craftsman. I believe it as I rock in the chair. Sturdy oak and pine with an earthy finish, they’ve held together through the invention of the light bulb, the Model-T, Rudolph Valentino, and now two world wars.

Dad glances over at me. “You like that Wraith Gilbert Upton drives?”

“It’s okay,” I shrug.

“You need something to take the girls out in, don’t you think?” He gives me a confidential grin, like: _wink-wink, I know what you boys are_ really _up to ‘cause I was one, too._

“I reckon.” I shrug again.

“We’ll see about it.” He stands up. “We’ll see.”

He goes inside and I rock for a time, watching the cement dry. Without thinking about it too hard, I step down off the porch and look at the mushy gray stuff. I fish around in my pocket and find a pocket knife. Carefully, in one small corner, I carve out some letters. I have to keep my hand steady, the lines straight and the curves just so. I start to sweat. It drips down my temple to my chin. And I don’t feel a stitch of guilt as I butcher the working man’s handiwork with the tip of my knife. I don’t feel a stitch of it.

Afterward, I examine my own handiwork as it hardens, the tickle of rebellion inside me, it makes me feel manic. I could scream or cry. Why not both?

I stand there for a long while after, the light through the clouds like a benediction, simple ghosts and phantoms silence their otherworldly yowls. I stare at the letters and make a promise to show him one of these days. Maybe everyone will be dead by then and this old house will be boarded up. Maybe the Nazis will bomb it, if that old Führer gets his way. But this will still be here, in my wildest dreams, six letters plus five, and it will be all he needs to know.

* * *

I’m finishing an essay in the library.

It’s supposed to be a senior capstone, a reflection on wars and wartime, a dry, dull thing my permanent record could do without. I mostly doodle in the corners of the page and stare out of the window at the very tree Finny kissed me under. Somehow I can’t believe that a little, tiny straw actually broke a camel’s back. It was more like a bale of hay; hay made of sticks and stones.

Cora comes in around two, and I don’t hear her at first. I startle when I see her beside me.

“You gotta phone call,” she says, unamused.

I scramble up from the desk before she’s even finished talking and run back to the kitchen like my life depends on it. I snatch up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi Gene.”

His voice…oh, dear GOD, his voice…I nearly fall to pieces right then, fall to my knees, fall down, prostrated, in gratitude and relief. But I bite it back just a little. It doesn’t mean he’s calling to exchange words of love and forgiveness.

“Finny…” My voice sounds weak. I glance over at Cora, stirring something on the stove top. She glances at me, rolls her eyes, mutters to herself, and leaves the kitchen. “Finny,” I say again with more strength. More _sure._

“I got your letter.” He sounds so formal. I might as well be a headmaster or a drill sergeant. “I’m sorry it took me so long to call.”

“It’s okay.” I’m longing for the days when we didn’t have to say a word.

“I needed some time to think.” He pauses there, and I think I hear someone in the background. A radio, maybe? “Is - is now a good time?”

Good times don’t exist anymore. “Uh-huh.” I sink down to the floor and set the phone on my lap.

“I don’t want to interrupt, if you’re -”

“I’m not. I’m not doing anything.”

“Okay. I just wanted -”

“I miss you,” I blurt before I can stop myself. “I miss you, I love you, and I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, and you probably shouldn’t, but -”

“Gene.” His voice is as serious as ever. “I love you, too. That’s more important to me than anything. I don’t have a lot of time. I went into town to use a phone booth. But I wanted to hear your voice and tell you…” There’s a rustling like pocket change. “I’m going to tell my folks the truth. Like I said before. I’m not changing that. I want them to know I’m in love and it’s with you.”

“Oh, Finny…”

“And if you can’t do that for me now, then I’m going to wait until you can. And, yeah, something awful might happen to us. We might get in lots of trouble, but I don’t want to live a lie with you. You’re too important to me for that.”

And did I really think he wouldn’t continue with his goodness? Did I really think he wouldn’t love and expect the same love in return?

“Finny,” I sigh. “I -”

“That’s all I wanted to say. Just think about it. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes. But -”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll write you.” He pauses. “I love you, Gene.”

“I love you, Finny.”

He hangs up and I hang up.

I look at my hands. Clean and soft.

And empty.

* * *

If momma and dad could have had trumpeting heralds here, they would have.

If they could have had a bumbling jester, a golden throne, and maybe a pillow with a huge ring on it, they would have. Seven white horses and virgin maidens - for the King is coming home.

Even in all my bitterness, I recognize that maybe it would be fitting. Tanner is a war hero, after all. And for what he’s suffered, he deserves quite a homecoming. But he’ll have to do with just me, Althea, Randy, and Cora as he slinks back into town by car rather than train. It makes me wonder if all the surgeries and therapy in Atlanta were a disaster.

I’m a little worried when dad pulls up in the driveway and we’re all out on the front porch waiting. I step down, thinking Tanner might need help getting out of the car, but out the back passenger side a woman emerges. A Black woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform. Her cheekbones are high and her lashes long. There’s conversation. I hear Tanner fussing at momma to get away and let the nurse help him. And momma does, eyeing the nurse lady with suspicion.

“How about I get one arm and Gloria get the other?” My mother offers.

“No, momma, it’s fine.” I hear Tanner say. “Just get back.”

Dad goes around back to the trunk. He starts taking out suitcases, and I go over to help, but stop when I see Tanner get out of the car. The nurse cuffs two metal poles around his elbows as he _stands._

That God-forsaken bastard _stands._

On _two legs_.

I stand there, my mouth agape. And then he turns to look at us and smiles with a face with no bandages. There’s lumps and bumps on his forehead, but his hair has grown in, combed back real nice and the burned skin is smoother. His eyes shine and his smile is wide. He’s like new. New and Improved Tanner.

I hear Althea squeal behind me. “Tanner!” She runs down the ramp and right over to him, flinging both arms around his neck. I see both momma and the nurse hold out their arms as if Althea might tip him over.

“Good to see you, baby sis,” Tanner says to her. “I missed you.” He nods to the nurse. “This is Gloria, my nurse. Gloria, this is Althea, my sister.”

Althea and Gloria exchange greetings, while I feel my father nudging something into my hand. I look down at a couple of suitcases. “Here,” he says. “Take those inside. Tell Cora to put Tanner’s things in the wash.”

Randy skips past me and goes over where there’s more greetings, and I watch instead of listening to my father. I watch Tanner’s smile and how he _laughs_ at something Randy says. I’m practically stunned to silence.

He’s _standing._ My Mighty Marine Brother. _Standing_ and…laughing?

And, sure, he’s different with the fixed up face and two legs - which I logically know to not be real, but still - but there’s something else about him…something I can’t quite place.

Tanner’s eyes find mine at last. He gives me a wistful-like smile and nods once.

I nod once back.

And so I take the luggage and while I hand a bag off to Cora, she doesn’t even look at me as her eyes shift suspiciously towards Gloria. Gloria smiles at her, but Cora abruptly turns away and makes her way into the house.

“What’s all this?” Tanner stops at the concrete ramp. He looks at dad. “You didn’t do all this for me, did you?”

“It was no trouble at all, sugar,” momma replies, walking alongside of him, holding on to his arm. “This way will be easier for you.” She looks up at dad with a tight smile. “Easy is what we want.”

“You shouldn’t have done all this,” Tanner insists, his face turning pink. He’s steered towards the ramp by momma and Gloria, but he hesitates, pulls back a little. “I’d like to go up the steps.”

Gloria says, “All right, let’s -” the same time momma says, “I don’t think you ought to -”

They both stop, look at one another, and Tanner pulls his arm away from momma as Gloria helps him to the bottom step. Momma’s face blanches. I swear to God, if looks could kill…

“Careful now, sugar,” momma says through her teeth. “I’m right here behind you.”

I watch from the porch as Tanner takes each step, one at a time, lifting his foot - _his foot_ \- leaning on the metal crutches, as Gloria whispers encouragements to him. There’s determination in his eyes as he goes up all ten of the wide front porch steps and gets to the top with a triumphant smile. Sweating and panting, he turns to Gloria, a soft look in his eyes, “Thank you.”

“You did it all yourself,” she says. “I hardly had to hold you.”

“Ain’t that a shame,” Tanner says softly.

“Oh, well, now,” momma says loudly as she steps onto the porch. “That was certainly a long drive. Gloria, why don’t you go on inside and help Cora put Tanner’s things away? I’m sure she could use a hand.”

Tanner cuts our mother a look that could burn ants. Gloria squeezes his arm, nods to momma, and goes inside.

Tanner waits till she’s gone then turns to our mother. “She’s a _nurse_.” He practically growls. “She ain’t here to do no cookin’ or cleanin’.”

Momma lifts her chin. “I just thought Cora could use a hand is all. With all us coming back.” She takes Tanner’s arm. “Come on now. Let’s get you all settled.”

I watch after them, still holding a suitcase of somebody’s as they go inside. Momma’s shoulders are stiff and the back of Tanner’s head looks normal. So normal that if someone just had a photo of that, you wouldn’t know about anything else below it. Or in front of it. For a second, he’s coming home on Thanksgiving, I’m the one leaning on a cane, and Finny’s wishing him a goodnight.

I take a step back.

Althea lays a hand on my arm. “He looks amazing. Better. Can you believe it?”

The King has come home to his kingdom - only he won’t ever find it the way he left it.

I turn to Althea. “Yes. Yes, I can believe it.” And then I follow him inside.

* * *

It could be like any family dinner.

Certainly before. Certainly when there wasn’t a war and the problems that befell the Forresters arrived in a form that glittered like gold and dissolved like salt. I’ve done this thousands of times, and I wonder, as the bread and green peas are passed, if I could count it up. If I could add up the total family dinners of my lifetime and that could be my story. That could be my touching eulogy.

Dad talks about how Grandpa and Grandma Forrester are coming up soon and there might be some more visits from aunts and uncles. I imagine they’re all mostly curious. They certainly haven’t been concerned. Momma sits on one side of Tanner and Gloria sits on the other. Momma tries to slice up his Salisbury steak and he gives her such a look, she shrinks back and takes a sip of ambrosia wine.

Gloria lowers her eyes from Cora when she comes in to set a pitcher of lemon water on the table, then Gloria looks at me and smiles. “So, you must be Eugene. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I stop chewing. I glance over at Tanner and swallow. “About me?”

“You broke your leg?” She says. “It looks like you’ve healed up nice.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “I have.”

Dad clears his throat.

“So, how long have you been a nurse?” Althea interjects. “Must have been an awful lot of school.”

“I reckon it would have been under normal circumstances,” Gloria replies. “They pushed us through quick because of the war. I did most of my training at a convalescent home just outside of Atlanta.”

My mother’s smile is stiff. She takes a long drink of ambrosia wine. “Ain’t it nice Gloria came all this way to help Tanner get settled in? But I’m sure we’ll manage just fine when she goes back to Atlanta.”

Tanner sets his fork down and gives momma a look that could melt steel. “We talked about this.”

Momma doesn’t even look at him. “Hush now and eat your dinner.” Her eyes roam over Randy, Althea, then land on me. “Eugene, how are your studies?”

“Fine, I guess.” I look at Tanner and Gloria. They seem to be trying awful hard not to look at each other.

“Next time you’re over at Gilbert’s,” momma says. “Be sure to give Florrie my best.”

“I’ll be sure.”

“Hey!” Tanner jumps in his seat. He lifts the table cloth, and I see Randy scrambling back into his chair, his face as red as a tomato.

“ _Randolph_ …,” momma sneers. “You have any idea how _expensive_ -”

“I just wanted to see,” Randy mumbles.

Momma opens her mouth again and dad turns to him, ready to burst forth a tornado of severity, but Tanner lifts up his hand. “It’s okay, it’s all right.” He smiles at Randy. “Look, I’ll show you in the parlor. After dinner, okay? They work real nice, just like real legs.”

Randy sits so low in his chair, he’s barely looking over the table. “Kay.”

“It’s really okay,” Tanner assures. “I’d be curious, too.” He gives Randy a smile, but Randy looks warily from momma to dad. I swear they could break into another argument about filthy bushes any second.

After dinner, momma and dad disappear to wherever. I procrastinate on the loads of homework I have, and pretend I have nothing better to do than stand in the threshold of the parlor. Randy and Althea sit by the window, while Tanner takes a seat under ugly Uncle Asher. Gloria stands by with her arms folded, watching as Tanner rolls up one of his pant legs revealing one of the prosthetics.

Everybody leans in to look, wordless, curious. It’s shaped like a leg. There’s a definable foot, calf, and knee. It’s peach-toned, to match Tanner’s skin. Tanner removes a shoe to show us how the foot is shaped.

“Now this part,” he points from mid-thigh to the foot, “is made of aluminum. And this part up here,” he points to the upper thigh,” is real leather.” He sets the leg on the floor and moves forward until it bends. “See? The knee bends just like real one and so does the ankle. It works just like a real leg.”

“Then why do you got the crutches?” Randy moves from the chair to the floor beside the sofa.

Tanner glances up at Gloria.

“That helps your brother learn to use them,” she says gently, smiling at Randy. “It takes time to learn to balance on them and walk.”

Randy looks at Gloria doubtfully.

“Here, I’ll show you.” Tanner stands and Gloria quickly reaches down to grab his arm. There’s sockets at the knee and ankle that bend and move with Tanner’s movement, but he’s still a little unsteady. He tilts to the side, towards Gloria, and she holds him up.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers. “I’ve got you.”

His eyes are soft and hazy as he gives her a look of gratitude. “I know.”

I get tunnel vision. I feel faint.

I feel as if every fiber that holds me together is starting to unravel as Gloria’s words echo in my ears over and over. I don’t see anything else or hear anything else, and I leave the parlor, leave Tanner’s demonstration. I go up to my room, I shut the door, and lean against it as if there’s a monster beating it down. And isn’t there? Shouldn’t there be? The very same monster that won’t give me any peace. The very same that rises up from Forrester graves to come here and tell me that there’s no hope for me.

Except for him. _He’s_ my hope.

He didn’t have to say it on the phone, but it’s still true. He’s still got me, and Christ alive, what am I doing here?

I can’t have both. I shake my head to myself. I. Can’t. Have. Both.

And how long is he really going to wait? Is he going to wait for over a thousand miles? Wait across phone lines and letter carriers? He’s just as scared as me. His proper voice on the phone didn’t hide it. He was just as scared as me on that tree, and he’s just as scared as me right now.

But he’s going to do it anyway.

Some things are worth risking bloody noses over. Some things are worth risking humiliation over. Some things are worth saving your own men over. Some things are worth breaking your damn leg over.

And some things are worth risking _everything_ and getting _nothing_ over.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Trigger Warning*  
> Some parts of this chapter may be traumatic for some readers.

_May 1943_

On Friday the sky is a solid, cloudless blue.

I look up at it as I cross the courtyard of St. Paul’s. The courtyard is a nice, neat square with four buildings around it. There’s a tall sycamore in the middle that the Headmaster would rather die than see cut down. He says there’s Union bullets in the bark from when Sherman came pillaging and plundering, even though Sherman went nowhere near Alabama. It also resembles the tree at Devon with its long branches that reach out in all directions. It’s like it’s begging to be climbed.

And maybe have someone fall off it.

The Sherman Sycamore disrupts my view briefly as I cross, so that I don’t see who’s approaching me. I look down at my shined shoes and back up to see Gil.

I stop. He stops. We both look everywhere but at each other. Although I feel my face getting red, I walk up to him.

“Hiya Gene,” he says with a wary smile.

“Hi,” I smile warily back.

We stand under the sycamore, side-by-side, shuffling our feet. I don’t know if I’ve been consciously avoiding him at school or not, but I don’t want to treat him like I did before. I don’t want to just ignore him and forget about him. There’s no love between us, but we shared something. Twice. It doesn’t have to go down the toilet of history and never be spoken of again.

I look over at him. I see freckles on the side of his cheek I’d never noticed before. It’s a little endearing. “Hey, Gil, um…”

He turns to me, still looking down at his feet.

“So.” I look around to make sure no one’s close enough to hear. “I know this might be strange for both of us. And maybe for a while. But I’d like to really be friends. Like I said.”

He gazes across the courtyard. “Thought maybe you were avoiding me.” He pauses then quickly adds. “Not that I could blame you. I really embarrassed myself, huh?”

“No. You didn’t,” I say earnestly.

He looks at me, doubtful.

“It’s just that…Tanner came home.” I clear my throat. “And there’s been some other things.”

He raises a brow. “Oh?”

I watch other guys walk by us on the way to class or to sit out on the lawn in small groups. Just a normal day, everything going on as usual. This time of year Devon is blooming. The leaves are a young green, the bees are out full force, and there’s tension and excitement in the air as graduation draws closer. Here, I feel a heavy heat on my skin and smell the blossoms from the magnolias and lilacs. It’s embedded into every nook and cranny. Just another difference, another wall that separates me and Finny. We might as well live on two different planets.

“You can tell me about the…other things,” Gil says softly. “If you want.”

I look at Gil, his concerned eyes, and decide my _other things_ shouldn’t be discussed here. “Um. Maybe. Later, maybe.” I clear my throat again. “How have you been?”

His face softens. “Okay, I reckon.” He shrugs. “I might really need your help in trig, actually. I got a C+ on the last test.”

I grin. “I’d love to help. I mean, if that’s okay.”

He grins back. “It is.”

“We can meet in the library later?”

“Sounds good.” He looks off. “I gotta get going.” Then he looks back at me, his voice softer. “Thanks, Gene.”

I nod and we part ways, walking to opposite sides of the courtyard, the leaves of Sherman’s Sycamore swaying, and I think for a second, beckoning.

* * *

The St. Paul’s library has a scent of musty velvet.

Even with the windows open to the courtyard with all those wildflowers and grass, the breeze doesn’t do any good. I feel myself sinking into the ancient aura of Confederate dreams and frontier battles. Sometimes I feel like I can hear the cannon fire and smell the gunpowder. It’s settled into the fibers of the rugs lain under the sturdy wood tables; in the chairs Gil and I sit in as I catch him up on his trig.

Thankfully, the awkward moments are fleeting and before long we’re like old pals. There’s a twinge of familiarity in it, almost like I expect him to take my arm when we walk out and morph into someone with emerald eyes and a smile that knows no pain.

Well.

Maybe that’s not so true anymore.

It isn’t Gil’s fault in the least, but I find myself getting impatient. I hurry through the last of the practice test in the book, and he hurries with me, slightly bewildered. As I close up my book and he closes up his, he gives the library a look over. It’s mostly quiet. No one near us at all.

He looks at me intently, lowers his voice. “Everything okay?”

I shrug. “I reckon.”

In an instant, I feel like the loneliest person on earth and it’s like Gil pulls away into a tunnel. His voice just an echo, getting more distant.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I mean…yeah.”

He doesn’t believe me. I can tell. Does he think he knows me so well now? Should he? Should I know him so well? “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

I glance around needlessly and lean towards him. “How did you know about that…the place?”

He blinks and gazes at me thoughtfully, then his eyes shift to his feet. “Um. Somebody took me?”

“Oh?” I prompt.

He shifts his gaze to the side. “Yeah. Older fella. From Maxwell.” His top lip sweeps over his bottom lip. “I sort of lied to him. Said I was nineteen.” He shifts his gaze to me. “I got impatient, I guess. Wanting to know what it was like and all. Anyhow, he took me. He bought me some beer, danced with me, and I took him to a hotel.”

I watch his face, which is clearly unimpressed with the memory, and something like sympathy blooms inside me.

He shrugs. “And that was that. He shipped off the next day. So, I just kept going back.”

“I knew there were…places like that. Just didn’t expect them to be here.”

“Oh, they’re all over,” Gil says matter-of-factly.

For a second, I make a mental map of the area around Devon. Could there be? Is it possible? It’s so much smaller than Montgomery. How would anyone know where to go? Who to talk to? Is there a code or something? I start to feel as if that night was a vision into a hidden world. One that’s really hidden in plain sight. The unassuming building, the part of town less trodden, and yet it was right there. If one knows where to look.

The loneliness ebbs away and shifts to a comfortable crowd; small talk and amiable silence.

“The only other one I know of,” Gil says, “I saw at the beach, Chic’s Beach in Virginia. It’s near Norfolk. You ever been?”

I shake my head, stand up, and grab my books. “I’ve been to one beach in my life and it wasn’t in Virginia.”

Gil stands and grabs his books as well. “We got a vacation home up yonder. It’s the furthest north my momma’s willing to go for anything. It might as well be the North Pole with Santa and his elves as far as she’s concerned.” He walks with me out of the library. “Anyhow, I saw one there, but I didn’t go in.”

“How did you see it? How did you even know?”

He smiles. “It was somewhere where nobody was supposed to be. Not even me.” He pauses. “Kind of like, hidden in plain sight.” He lifts a shoulder. “And, I don’t know, sometimes you can just tell.”

“I can’t tell.”

He’s quiet for a second, then says, “I think it’s something in here.” He lays a hand over his middle. “Like a gut feeling, but more…familiar and kinda subtle.”

I wonder if I’m capable of gut feelings. “I hope the cops don’t ever find it.”

“They did a while back. It used to be in a different place.” He squints a little as we get out into the early afternoon sun. “I don’t know where. Just what I heard.”

“Guess you learn something new everyday,” I muse as we slow to a stop at the edge of the courtyard.

“Reckon so.” He searches my face for a second, then looks away.

“I gotta get going.” I turn. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey.”

I turn back.

He comes toward me. He gets close. So close, I’m too aware, and my face heats up, as if he’d be just as brazen to kiss me in front of St. Paul’s boys.

But there’s no romance in his eyes. Just concern. Genuine and sincere. “Look, um. If you ever, ever need it, for any reason, I can give you the keys to our vacation house.”

I stare back at him.

“We don’t use it much, but momma likes it to be kept up nice. Dad sends a housekeeper sometimes and a gardener like twice a year. It’s furnished and all, so you’d have a place to sleep, place to rest.” He pauses there, a faint smile on his lips. “Place to take somebody. If you couldn’t take them anywhere else.”

I swallow and possibilities start to unfurl in my mind. Most notably: the possibility of being a Forrester in an Upton vacation home, silencing the Erastus/Rufus conflict forevermore. But most importantly: the possibility of taking someone there, meeting them there, a shelter from the storm…

Gil’s kind heart snuggles up like a cuddly bunny to my oily frozen one.

It almost melts.

I sniff. I look down. Pretend to be suddenly interested in something by my shoe. “That’s quite an offer. I don’t know why you’d do that. Least of all for me.”

“’Cause that’s what friends do,” he replies easily.

He’s too good. An awful lot like someone else I know.

I nod my head, shrug, anything but say what I should.

“Just let me know,” he says. “I gotta go to Latin. I’ll see ya.”

I close my eyes as his footsteps through the grass fade. When I open them, the green grass below is winking back.

So curious. And so naive.

* * *

Gil takes me home after school nowadays, dad relieved of the burden.

And/or surveillance.

Gil says nothing more about the vacation home during the drive and instead we chat about Horse Shit Hands, Jeb, and some other fellas going to the draft office with their fathers. They’ll be turning eighteen soon and there’s registration involved. Jeb said they start testing fitness for duty almost right away. I imagine him and Horse Shit Hands as American heroes, proud in uniform, proud to stick it to a Nazi. A Jap. I know a few more boys back at Devon. I know that look in the eyes as sure as I know my own.

But mine looks back, half-bewildered, shrugging, my reflection telling me its got no hope for me. No pride to give me and I’ll never be such a hero. I slump down in Gil’s passenger seat as he talks. The images of my friends and acquaintances saluting, marching, trading corduroy and leather for gabardine and canvas, start to blend with images of Tanner.

Tanner before and Tanner now.

I feel a bit of insult creeping in; an irritation that shouldn’t be there. Jeb and Horse Shit Hands all know about Tanner and yet they want to march off anyway? Do they think they’ll find the bastard that planted the mine that blew him up? Show him what for?

The irritation fades as we pull up to the house, and before Gil is even all the way in the drive, I can hear shouting inside and shrieking drunk enough to be my mother’s. I give Gil a hasty goodbye, and he gives me a concerned nod as he backs out of the drive.

I go inside and hear shouting from the library. My mother and Tanner. I roll my eyes and head for the stairs, but I hear another, more timid, voice in the shouting and curiosity gets the best of me. I set my books down on the foyer table and go stand in the parlor, so I can hear better.

“She didn’t do no such thing,” Tanner insists. “Just go on and admit you’re wrong, dammit.”

“All I know is, soon as she comes in this house, it’s gone,” my mother snarls. “It was sitting _right here._ It’s always _right. Here._ ”

“Did you ask Cora? She might’ve moved it or took it to get cleaned.” Tanner’s voice sounds like he’s talking to a child. It’s clear momma’s pretty drunk.

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes,” she exclaims. “She would’ve told me!” I hear a creak on the Tobias floors. “It was her! Comin’ in my house, stealing my things…why, I ought to -”

“Stop it!” Tanner thunders. “Just stop!”

“Mrs. Forrester,” Gloria says. “I -”

“She didn’t steal nothing,” Tanner interrupts. “It’s a stupid clock. Ain’t nobody needs some rusty old clock.”

“Rusty?” My mother sounds as if Tanner has just insulted her very soul. “Your Great-Great Uncle Asher rescued that clock from the Yankees! There’s no tellin’ what they would’ve done with it!”

“Told the time, I expect!” Tanner shouts. “Now, you stop with this nonsense and apologize to her!”

There’s silence, and I can picture my mother staring Gloria down, eyes bloodshot, maybe even a glass of ambrosia wine in one hand. Maybe considering whether or not to throw it.

“She’s got until dinner time to put it back,” momma slurs. “Or I’m callin’ Sheriff Walters.”

I hear more floor creaks and then momma’s stumbling steps on the stairway. I hold my breath. A long string of silence comes out of the library. I don’t move. I almost think Tanner and Gloria left somehow without me hearing.

“Why’d you do that?” Gloria whispers.

“’Cause she can’t just accuse you like that. It ain’t right.”

“Not that,” Gloria says firmly. “You didn’t let me speak. I wanted her to hear it from me. To tell her she was mistaken, and I don’t know anything about a clock.”

“Exactly,” Tanner agrees. I hear a Tobias floor creak and it sounds like he’s sitting down. “She’s mistaken. And off her rocker. I promise you, I’ll straighten her out. I’ll ask Cora when she gets back.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Gloria says, her voice low. “Why couldn’t you let me speak for myself?”

“You want me to just stand by and say nothin’?”

“If you keep speaking up for me your mother will never get to know me. She’ll never respect me.” Gloria’s voice dips lower and I have to strain to hear it. “And she’ll never accept us.”

I step through the parlor as quietly as I can, most of the Tobias floor creaks memorized, and peer around the door into the library. I see them by the windows, Tanner sitting, one crutch upright beside him, his fake legs bent at the knee. And Gloria standing over him, the sunlight hitting her just right. Long lashes cast down, black hair done up, a baby-blue dress instead of her nurse’s uniform. He’s looking up at her as if he prayed for an angel and the Lord delivered.

A tender place by my heart opens its petals, but it hurts. Like a sore spot in my throat. I absently place a hand there.

“Just give it time,” Tanner says. He stands - _stands,_ I just can’t get over it - and he leaves the crutch by the chair, wrapping his arms around her till she lifts those long lashes to look at him. “I’m sorry. I just want to protect you.” He pulls her close to him and there’s a tone in his voice, a look in his eyes, I’ve never heard or seen on him before. It’s like he’s got some ailment, but he doesn’t want to cure it. Perhaps he’s the first Forrester ever to be stricken with it. “I’d do anything to make you happy. Anything.”

Tears, unbidden and unwelcome, fall down my cheeks. The sore spot seems to press against my hand.

Tanner’s hand comes up to her face. “I’d fight for you. Every day for the rest of my life. And if my mother or my father won’t accept us, won’t accept you, then you can be sure I won’t accept _them._ You’re everything to me. You’re my strength.” He takes one of her hands and puts it against his lips. “You’re my shining light in the darkness.”

I could have started sobbing like a maniac, doing headstands, and juggling and they wouldn’t have noticed. Because I can see it between them, I feel it under my breastbone, like the heartbeats of baby birds, and dripping wet on my shoes.

I make a run for it.

My feet fall heavy over the Tobias floors through the parlor, the entryway, and out the front door. They propel me forward down the road. I run like there’s a pack of hyenas on my heels. Like I got caught. Like the badness was unveiled for everyone else to see. I run until my legs hurt, until I feel a throb in my gums, and my heart a blacksmith’s hammer, heated and pounding down. I fly past the Forrester Cemetery. I squeeze my eyes shut and when I open them, I see it just off the road, dipped down behind a little knoll.

I keep running and take off my St. Paul’s jacket. It flies behind me onto the pavement and falls like a dead bat. I take off my tie and fling it away. It sails in the air and lands coiled like a silky snake. I unbutton my shirt, and it flutters away, gone. My legs stutter and skip as I remove my pants, socks, shoes. Gone.

I sprint to that pond in nothing but my underpants, a string of clothing behind me, the evidence, skin that was shed, layers peeled. My heart is free, a bud in full bloom, and I take the leap, diving in head first.

* * *

She’s upside down when I see her, so the frown could’ve been a smile.

I float on my back, grab onto the rickety old dock, and look up at her. She’s got my clothes gathered in her arms, and I can see from the dim angle of the sun that I’ve been out here for quite a while. I should check for pruny fingers and toes.

And maybe leeches.

Althea tilts her head to look at me. “For heaven’s sakes, Gene.”

“The bathtub’s haunted,” I say, bringing my legs down to tread in the water. “I had no choice.”

She sets my clothes down on the dock, and removes her shoes and stockings. She sits on the edge, dipping her legs in the water. “Must’ve been some ghost.”

I look around the pond. “Didn’t it used to be more mossy than this? I remember it was everywhere.”

“I don’t know.” She looks around, too. “I just remember all the frogs. Momma sure got all snippy when I brought one home, remember?”

I pull myself up on the dock to lean my arms on it. “I do remember that.”

“It was just a little one. Wouldn’t have hurt nobody.”

I think back to then. Back to when we had adventures, skinned knees, and thought shapes in the clouds meant something. I could make up stories in my head that made me brave. A knight. A cowboy. A soldier. I’d save princesses and precious jewels. I caught the bad guy, tied him to the train tracks, and rode off with the rescued maiden. I didn’t know that dragons could live within me. I didn’t know the thing I’d slay would watch me in the mirror.

Althea looks down at me warily. “You’re different.”

“I feel different.” I wipe dripping water from my chin.

This was my baptism. I’m obligated now; breathing and flowing inside me, it lives. Once I remove myself from this pond, I will keep this covenant. I will leave this water and the green, green moss, the frogs, and weeping willows to bear witness, the only witness.

She lifts a foot out of the water, polished toes wiggling. “I’m going to Huntsville.” Her eyes follow her foot as she plunges it back in. “Told momma and dad I was going to spend the weekend with Caroline. But I’m not.”

I consider this. “Are you coming back?”

“To take my exams.”

Something between us, like an invisible string, tugs. Tightens. She looks at me. She feels it, too.

I rest my chin on my arms, kick my feet under the water. “Where are you going to go?”

“I was thinking New York City. That’s where everybody goes, ain’t it?”

“You can take the girl out of Alabama…,” I smile at her.

She smiles wistfully back, and the string pulls just under my ribs.

“And you’ll be all graduated soon.” She shrugs and gazes around the pond. “I reckon we’re halfway there. To being grown up and all.”

“Maybe you.”

“And I’ve got money.” She nods slowly, then cuts her eyes to me, smile teasing. “Well, I’d have more if somebody would’ve paid me back.”

“A lady never forgets,” I tease back.

Her smile fades. “I’m not scared at all. I thought I would be. I thought for sure.”

We’re quiet for a minute as this realization settles. I feel that tug between us even more, and I know that our days are numbered.

“I’m not scared either,” I say.

She looks out over the pond, a breeze catching a piece of her hair.

“I’m going to tell them. Momma and dad. I’m going to tell them everything.”

She laces her fingers together in her lap.

“He’s worth it. He’s worth risking everything and getting nothing for.” I take a breath. “They can haul me off to prison or some asylum, but I’ll fight for him. I’ll fight everyday.”

She looks at me for a moment or so, thoughtful. Then she stands. She reaches behind her and unzips her dress. It drops to her feet in a pool of peachy pink. She stands there in her chemise, removes a comb from her hair, and surveys the water. I push back from the dock and swim backwards as she steps back a few feet. Then she takes a running leap, hugging her knees, she splashes down.

Her head comes up with a smile, a laugh. I look at her with pleasant surprise. I pump my fist in the air and shout. And for a time, while the sun sinks, sand in an hourglass, it’s like we’re eight years old again. Splashing and laughing, swimming and floating. We take turns doing flips off the dock. We float on our backs and imagine other worlds; we tell stories and dream of sugary things, dressed up real nice in pretty paper; hopes are all blue sky and elves and gnomes and the faeries have wings and not pink shirts.

I watch that last hot orange sliver of sun go and savor the seconds. Dragonflies skimming the surface, chirping frogs in the reeds, I look at everything. I listen and inhale, etching the day and the place in me forever.

And then it’s time.

The spot under my ribs twists as I help Althea out of the water. She rakes her fingers through her wet hair, and I shake water off my arms. We put our dry clothes over our wet bodies, carry our shoes. We leave wet footprints on the road. I put my St. Paul’s jacket around her as a breeze passes. We chatter and giggle the whole way, reminiscing and joking, wondering about this and that. We look around at the evening world that exists when we’re safe inside at dinner, a prisoner’s accidental escape. The bugs, the breeze, the black-and-diamonds sky, we marvel at it like children who don’t know any better. Two kids who only see as far as tomorrow.

As we get closer we fall silent, solemn. She curls her fingers around my arm. The house is ahead, lamplight in the windows, it all looks so cozy from the outside. Our footsteps slow, and I lick pond water from my lips, one last taste, one last addition to the memory. We stop and the front door looms. In the dark, I think I see all the Forresters that stood in front of it before us. I see silhouettes of three-cornered hats, hoop skirts, and long pipes. They just couldn’t get away.

We trudge up Tanner’s special ramp. We stop at the door.

She looks at me. I look at her.

We open it.

* * *

I don’t know what I was expecting.

Dad standing there with a watch, foot tapping angrily. Momma leaning on the entryway table, ambrosia wine sloshing while she fussed. Something. Just something.

But no.

The foyer is empty as we step toward the dining room where dinner is under way. Momma’s and dad’s voices bark back and forth. I hear Tanner muttering. We appear in the doorway like creatures from the deep, sopping wet and dripping. Cora comes in with a water pitcher, she sees us, her eyes going wide. No one else notices. Momma’s cutting her eyes to Gloria while she drinks, dad’s back faces us, and Tanner, Gloria, and Randy are bent over their plates.

“Are y’all all right?” Cora’s hand comes up to her neck.

Heads turn and some double take.

“What on God’s green earth!” Momma stands unsteadily.

Dad turns around. Randy stops chewing, mouth open, and Tanner grimaces. Gloria makes like she’s going to get up.

“Are y’all hurt?” She asks.

“We just went swimming,” I say.

“At the pond,” Althea adds.

Dad turns back around. “Go upstairs and clean up, the two of you. Y’all smell like a swamp.”

“Althea June!” Momma is incredulous. She sets down her wine. “Four years of finishing school, I tell you! Four years! And here you going and jumping in dirty old ponds?”

Althea’s fingers tighten on my arm. “It was just for fun, momma.”

“For fun?” She takes a swallow of ambrosia wine. “I reckon you’d like to catch pneumonia for fun. What’s gotten into you? And Eugene?” She looks at me. “You’re dripping all over my rug! Herman!”

“Get on upstairs and change your clothes,” dad says in between bites.

I clear my throat, but my voice still comes out all fuzzy. “I want to talk to you.”

“Go upstairs,” says the back of my dad’s head.

Cora comes in and hands us some towels. Althea starts to dry off, but I don’t budge. I want the pond on me. I want to hang onto it, the witness, for as long as I can.

“I really need to talk to you, dad.” I look at my mother. “And you, too.”

She sits back down. “After you’ve had a bath. Go on now and listen to your father.”

But I don’t move and Althea stays beside me. Tanner quits eating and stares at us. Randy, too. Everyone’s here. They all might as well hear it from me. It will trickle into the ears of other family members sooner or later, concentrated or diluted, but at least I have all their attention right this very minute.

“No,” I say to the back of dad’s head. “Just listen to me.”

“Cora.” My mother shakes her glass at her. “Get me the bourbon, please.” Then she cuts her eyes to Gloria. “But be sure to tell me if you need to take it somewhere to get it fixed first.”

Gloria’s expression is icy. Cora has a split-second hesitation in her step as she goes into the kitchen.

I grit my teeth. “Dad, I need to talk to you.”

I see his arms come up to wipe his mouth, but he’s still got his back to me. “I said, go upstairs.”

“Dad -,”

“Go on. Do as I say.”

“If you’d just give me a minute, I -”

“Althea! Eugene! Get off that rug! Oh, you’re just gonna _ruin_ it! Your Great-Grandpa DuBois brought that all the way from - ”

“Momma, listen -,”

“Go upstairs!”

“ - all my fine things! Why, your Great-Grandpa would be _ashamed_ -”

“I -”

“Go!”

“ - nobody in his house has any respect for -”

“Listen - “

“Go on!”

“I love him!” It bursts out of me, and everyone falls silent. I wait a heartbeat and then I babble forward. “You all met him, too. He was here at Thanksgiving, and I ran away with him before because I wanted to be with him. I’m in love with him. I love him so much…I…” I hesitate. My throat constricts and my words settle everywhere like dust, on the stricken and gaping faces of my family, on the twice-damned rug getting soaked under my feet.

Everyone sits still like mannequins and there’s not a sound, not a breath, for an excruciating handful of seconds. Then the grandfather clock in the foyer chimes, and I see the back of my father’s neck slowly start to redden.

Then momma takes a long pull from her glass. “Well. That’s ridiculous.” She says it so clear and sober. “Don’t be silly, Eugene. We all have a fondness for our friends, but don’t be silly.” She cuts into her roast and takes a bite.

It feels almost like Althea is holding her breath, too. And holding me up.

“I’m not being silly. I really love him, and I want to be with him. Not Caroline or Polly or Mable or any girl you bring here. Just him.”

Gloria’s eyes are wide. Tanner looks down, his arms crossed. Randy looks confused.

There’s another long silence, then my father speaks. “Go upstairs, Eugene, and get cleaned up.” I can’t read his tone and it throws me off.

“He wants to come down, um…for my graduation, he wants to come here.”

“Gene, enough.” My father’s voice is low and even. “Go get cleaned up and come down here and eat your dinner.”

I blink, my courage wavering. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I heard nonsense, that’s what. Now you go on upstairs, get cleaned up, eat your dinner, and say no more about it.” He picks up his fork and keeps eating.

Althea squeezes my arm again, and I realize she’s still there. For a second, I feel out of my body. Watching myself from the corner as I drip pond water all over momma’s precious rug, and what I’ve just said is just dismissed. Batted away like an annoying fly.

“It’s not nonsense,” I snap. “You hear me? I want you to listen, I want you to understand: I _love_ Phineas and he loves me. We’re -”

Dad suddenly stands, flinging his napkin to the floor, rounding on me, he grabs a fistful of my soaking shirt, and pushes me up against the wall. The back of my head slams, and I see the briefest of stars. Something falls and breaks. I hear gasps.

His nostrils flare like a bull’s, but his voice is low, like the growl of a wolf. “You listen to me. You shut your God forsaken mouth about this and never speak of it again. You’re gonna graduate St. Paul’s, your gonna graduate Tulane, your gonna come home and give me my grandsons. You understand me?” His fist tightens the fabric around my neck. “I ain’t gonna hear anymore of this deviance, this _filth_.”

“Dad, hey, come on now.”

I look over my father’s shoulder to see Tanner coming over, Gloria standing to help, but he waves her away.

“Come on, dad. Let him go. He’s just being stupid, all right?” Tanner looks at me sharply. “He runs with Gil and those other fellas. They’re always sayin’ stuff, you know? Telling all these stupid jokes.”

My father’s fingers loosen, and he steps away from me, his face like cold, hard marble. “Go upstairs. Get cleaned up. And eat. Your. Dinner.”

I slink away from the wall and feel fingers entwine in mine, warm and reassuring, but her eyes are full of tears. Althea pulls me from the dining room, and then she turns back. “Honestly, daddy,” she spits out viciously. “I ain’t never been so ashamed. When you hurt him, you hurt me, too.”

My father winces and turns away.

Althea drags me upstairs, and I’m in a daze. She takes me to my room and sets me on the bed. “I’ll get you a bath started,” she says as she turns to go, but I grab her arm.

The urgency I feel, the daze, my baptism water that clings to my skin, pulls the words out, and I feel a burst of courage as if I am that white knight come to slay the dragon.

And it’s shaped like a bull.

“Help me get out of here,” I plead to her.

A bull with property and money.

She nods and wraps me up in a wet, pondy hug.

A bull with legacy, rivalry, and broken sons.

And I will do what you’re never supposed to do with a bull:

I will _run_.

* * *

My stomach is in knots as I sink to the kitchen floor.

I listen for any noise in the quiet house as the call connects and starts to ring. One bath and clean clothes later, I was worried the pond and it’s magic would be erased, but it’s not done with me yet. It’s dark and my only friends in this cold kitchen are the hard receiver pressed to my ear and the moonlight coming through the shades.

I hear nothing but ringing in my ear. It was foolish of me, really, but I had the operator call Ludsbury’s phone anyway. My hand squeezes the receiver. I hope I’m wrong and in some strange, cosmic, random way Finny’s there and he’ll answer.

_Please…_

I’ve heard nothing from him since our last conversation. Perhaps he’s giving me time, space. Or maybe he’s giving me up. But I don’t want time or space anymore. I just want him. Anything for him. I feel almost defiant. Enough to where if my father caught me right now, I’d fight back. I’d get him off me, get him out of my head, out of my life, and then run. Just run.

There’s more rings, then I hear the operator, “I’m sorry, sir. There’s no answer. Please try back later.”

“Can you try it again?” I have nothing to lose, and I have all night.

There’s a pause. “All right, then.”

The rings start back up, and I press the receiver harder to my ear as if that might help. I close my eyes, and try to picture it: Finny hanging around or walking by for some reason, and he hears it and picks up and then he’ll say, “Hey, Gene,” and I can breathe again. I rock back and forth, replaying his voice in my head over and over.

I’m dying.

I need him.

_Please don’t let me hurt you._

The damn operator cuts in again. “I’m sorry, sir -”

“Try it again,” I demand. “Please.”

I just want one word. Just one second. Then it will all be okay, and I can go through with it all. But I need to know I haven’t ruined it for good. God, I need to know.

There’s a creak outside the kitchen, and I open my eyes. Heavy, awkward steps come closer and Tanner’s in the doorway, in his robe, balanced on one crutch. I hang up the phone and bring my knees up to my chest.

“What the hell you think you’re doing?” He glares down at me.

“You know what I’m doing,” I reply evenly.

He takes a couple of steps closer. He shakes his head. “You’re going to lose it all. You’re going to wind up in a nut house if you don’t watch it.”

It just really gets to me, you know? It just really gets under my skin, and I forget all about the promise I made to Althea. I stand up, slowly, and move in front of him. One swipe with my foot, I could knock that crutch out from underneath him.

“For the last time,” I growl. “ _I don’t want it_. Let it all go to hell for all I care!”

His face reddens with anger. “I saved your ass earlier. Don’t go and fuck it up.”

“By saying it was a joke? Oh, I’m so grateful!”

“God dammit! What’s the matter with you?”

“I heard you.” I try to lower the volume of my voice. “I heard you in the library earlier. Momma was accusing her and you stood up for her. You told her you’d fight for her.”

That shuts him up. He blinks a few times, a flinch like I’ve got him right where it hurts.

“If you can fight for her, then I can fight for him. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

“It ain’t the same thing, Gene!”

“Bullshit! You’d do anything for her, that’s what you said. Momma hates her, you know she does, but you love her anyway. No matter the risk. She’s worth it, and you know it.”

He works his jaw. “Gloria is a _woman_ -”

“Don’t you start with that.”

We stare each other down for a few seconds, and he finally looks away, his mouth screwed up in a scowl.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine. You want to run off with some fella like an idiot and get your ass beat, be my guest. But you can’t say stuff to momma and dad like that. Coming home sopping wet like some sad ol’ trout? You think they were supposed to take anything you said serious?”

“What am I supposed to do? Bring Finny down here and kiss him in front of everybody?”

Tanner makes a face. “Jesus! Don’t tell me that!”

“What then?” I challenge. “What do you suggest?”

“Might as well go ahead and check yourself into the nut house, for land’s sakes. You need it.”

I’m ready to snap at him again, but I look him over, leaning on the crutch, and his prosthetic feet in some house slippers. He’ll never be the same. No matter what the doctors try to do, no matter how many ramps our father builds, he’s forever changed.

And as of today I am, too.

I relax a little and look at him steadily. “You don’t really want me to go to a nut house.”

“I don’t care what the hell you do.”

“Yes you do.” I look down. “Because I care what you do.” He says nothing, so I keep talking. “Don’t you think it’s about time we stopped all this?”

He leans harder on the crutch. “Stopped all what?”

I look up at him. “You know exactly what.”

He looks away.

“I don’t want to be like this with you anymore. I’m getting out of here, I’m leaving, and I want to leave knowing we’re at peace.”

I see the hand on his crutch start to tremble. “Fine. Whatever.”

“It’s not whatever, Tanner.” My throat starts to feel thick. “Was there ever a time we cared about each other at all?”

“Jesus Christ,” he hisses through his teeth.

“I’m serious. Was there?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “You sure were a little shit to me. Every time momma would send me to play with you when you were a kid, you’d just run away from me. Get all hateful.”

“Are you kidding me? You used to _push_ me. Make fun of me. You pushed me down the front steps once, remember that?”

“You _kicked_ me!”

“I didn’t _kick_ you!”

“You were being a little dick ‘cause I wouldn’t let you come with me and my friends. I mean, Christ, you were seven years old and we were sixteen. The hell were we supposed to do with some little kid hanging around?”

I open my mouth to protest, to argue, but I stop myself. “Well, I guess there’s just no hope for us after all.” I look down at my feet and mutter, “Forrester boys with no hope.”

Tanner says nothing for a minute, and when he speaks again his voice is softer. “You know, when momma and dad brought you and Althea home from the hospital, I didn’t know what to think. They were so sure it would be a girl, and that’s all I heard. I was gonna get a sister. And just one, too. One baby. I didn’t understand all that stuff yet, you know, about babies. How y’all could be twins. Aunt Faye said something to me about storks and cabbage patches, but I knew she was full of shit.”

He stops. I look up, and he turns to look right at me. “But a little brother? I was happy, you know? I held both of you, when they brought you home. They let me. Just for a little while, making sure I didn’t drop y’all or nothin’. Althea was asleep, so I didn’t want to wake her. Then they handed you to me. You were just this little thing…wiggling around, looking at everything.” His expression changes, his eyes glazing as if he’s seeing me in another time, another place. “And I looked down at you, right at you, and I said: ‘listen, I’m your big brother and I’m new at this. Just like you’re new at being a baby, so maybe we can teach each other a few things.’” He stops there, his eyes focusing on me again. “And you smiled at me. You sure as shit did.”

I’m surprised to feel my throat thicken again and a sting behind my eyes.

He looks away. “I reckon I didn’t teach you much, did I?”

I sigh, my shoulders sag. “Tanner, I -”

“I’m sorry.” His voice is flat, clotted. “Okay? I could’ve done better.” His knuckles gripping the crutch are white. “I thought about you, you know? When they were doing all the surgeries, and I thought this would have to be God’s way. God’s way of telling me to do better by you. By everybody. I mean, you break your damn leg actin’ like a fool, and I lose both of mine doing the same. It’s got to mean something. When the Lord takes something away.”

There’s a moment there, where I think I can actually hug him. I don’t know if I ever have. But I don’t move. I stay where I’m at.

“And anyway, you’re a whole person,” he continues. “And you got your whole life ahead of you - “

“So do you -”

He holds up his other hand. “You’ve got your _whole_ life. All of you. Nothing artificial.”

I rub my lips together. “Tanner. I’m sorry, too. I just - “

“That’s enough.” He looks away from me. He wipes his cheek. “Enough of this shit now. I know you’re sorry and that’s enough.” He looks at me, and in the moonlight I see his Forrester eyes are glassy blue. “Okay?”

I nod. “Okay.”

He turns to go, then he stops in the doorway. “Listen, if you run off with this fella, and you’re… _with_ him or whatever, don’t put up with bullshit. If he hurts you or something, you let me know. You don’t need to put up with that.”

I feel a small smile form on my lips. “He won’t. But thanks.”

Tanner says nothing more. He hobbles out of the kitchen, down the hall, and his steps fade.

I stand there, the hum of the ice box behind me, an owl hooting somewhere in the crepe myrtles. I feel my heart beating, blood in my veins, all Forrester and DuBois, and the clouds clear in my mind. Something inside me unchains, pulls off the weights, rises to the surface, and takes a starved breath of air.

I pinch the back of my hand. Then the other.

It’s different. I’m different. Somehow.

I look out the window. It’s a clear night. I go to the French doors in the back and open them, step outside. I wander into the yard, into the trees, I walk around and around. My fingers reach out and absently run over the bark, the buds, the leaves. My pinky snags on a pointy branch, and I feel a sting. I look down at the dot of blood and put it between my lips. I taste the metallic tang, the red liquor of Forrester and DuBois and it tastes like birth and death; it tastes like losing and winning. Like the salt of the dead Montgomery earth.

I find a moony spot over in the corner. I remove my robe and sit. I fold the robe up careful and lay it down, lay my head on it, and with my bleeding finger still between my lips, I close my eyes and let myself be at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's only one more chapter after this :(
> 
> I know :(
> 
> I appreciate the patience and the encouragement from everyone. All the subs, kudos, comments, and bookmarks - they all mean a lot. 
> 
> And I promise the last chapter will be up sooner than like 2 months ;)


	19. Chapter 19

Althea goes to Huntsville.

She keeps up the pretense she’s just going to see Caroline, and they’re going to do some kind of letter writing thing for all the soldiers. Momma comes out of her rooms to remind Althea that she had _four years_ of finishing school. _Four years._ And not to jump in any dirty bodies of water with boys. Althea is penitent and polite, tells momma she’ll behave, but she laughs about it as I walk her to the train station. I didn’t want her to go alone, and we couldn’t very well let dad drive her.

“I’ll see you when I get back,” she says, hugging me.

I hug her in return. “Give her my best, will you?”

“I will.”

She boards and waves out the window at me. I’m shocked to feel teary-eyed. It’s usually her watching me go. As the train begins to pull away, the engine hissing as the wheels turn, I walk off to find a phone booth inside the station. I put in some coins, dial up the operator, and get her to ring Ludsbury’s phone again. It’s Saturday morning, and there’s the slightest of possibilities he’s there, but I try anyway because there’s the slightest of possibilities Finny is there instead.

But it just rings.

This dull tone with the pitch and whine of hopelessness, the sound of prayers unanswered, the sound of warm beds gone cold. I sit with my fingers pinching my nose bridge as it rings and rings and the operator comes on with her apology. I get ready to ask her to try again, but then I change my mind and get her to ring another number.

Finny graduates in exactly one week. I feel as if that’s all the time I have, and it’s running out of the hour glass, like a prisoner on death row marking the days on the cell wall, cold dead afternoon sun. I feel like I have to catch him before he walks that stage so he doesn’t walk it thinking I’m still wavering, still not _sure._ He has to know before then.

The whole thing makes me sick now. I should’ve known all I’d be met with, concerning momma and dad, was denial. Dismissive denial. Nonsense.

_Filth._

_Deviant._

“Hello?”

I think I recognize the twang as Richie’s, but then I don’t care if I do. “Is Gil Upton around?”

“Hang on.” They set the receiver down someplace, and I can hear voices in the background. Gil’s dormitory sounds awful busy on a Saturday. I wonder what Finny’s doing today. I could call the dorm, ask for him, but what if he won’t speak to me? I think I’d die. I think I’d really die, and -

“Hello?”

“Gil?”

“Yeah? Gene?”

I lean my head against the door of the phone booth. “Can you come get me? I’m at the train station.”

“Why? What are you doin’ there?”

“Can you just come?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “This isn’t - you weren’t trying to - ?”

“No, nothing like that. Just seeing somebody off is all. And not who you think.”

“Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

We hang up, and I pull more change from my pocket. I dial up the operator and have her ring Ludsbury’s phone one more time.

Just one more, I think.

And if not, I’ll go for broke, and ring it ten more times.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, I see the Wraith from inside, gleaming against the glassy exterior that faces the tracks. I hang up the phone, shutting off the endless rings, and go out before he can come in.

Gil is coming around his car when he sees me, casual in short sleeves and plaid pants. He stops as I go to the passenger door.

“Hey,” he says. “Everything okay?”

I get in and he gets in, doors shut, and I stare straight ahead. I see him looking at me in my periphery.

“Gene?”

I exhale. “I told them.”

He waits a beat. “Told who what?”

“And they just…dismissed it. Like it wasn’t real.” I swallow and watch a train pull in from somewhere. It’s been places. It’s been out of here. “Dad just grabbed me. Said it was nonsense. Filthy nonsense. He said to never speak of it again and just eat my dinner.”

Gil lights a cigarette, offers me one, and I take it.

“It was a waste of time, waste of words. I guess I just thought he’d…give up. Kick me to the curb. Let me go.” I take a drag.

Gil exhales and swipes at some dust on the dash. “When did it happen?”

“Yesterday. I got this epiphany of some kind. I saw Tanner with his nurse. Well, she’s more to him than that. And I…” I shake my head. “And dad just told me to eat my dinner. Just do what he says. He used to not give a shit about what I did.”

“But you wanted him to.”

“I don’t know anymore.” I lay back in the seat, finish my cigarette, and flick it out the window.

Gil finishes his cigarette and lights another. “When Freddie was still alive and dad was so interested and proud, I’d wish he’d look at me that way. I’d wish he’d ask me things.”

I watch the train through the windshield, passengers coming off and others waiting to get on, some in uniform. “I think my dad is still proud of Tanner. It’s just different now. And he cares, he’d have to, he spent all that money on the wheelchair ramp my brother’s never used.”

We watch the trains roll in and out for a while, smoke our cigarettes. I could pass the day just doing this. Everything outside of this car is just a mine field.

“So, you told them,” Gil says. “They just didn’t want to listen.”

“They want me to pretend. Play like everything is normal and do all the things Tanner was supposed to do.” I pause there. “I wish I could say I was lucky. They could’ve killed me right then. Somehow trying to commit me or have me arrested would have been easier to handle. Predictable.”

We sit quietly for a time, watching the trains come and go. I think about how a train whistle in the distance used to make me feel. I’d hear them when I was little. I’d hear them late in the evening and it would give me this feeling of loneliness and sorrow. I wanted to weep for the metal beast with its steaming breath as it cried out into the darkness for someone to hear it. I have never understood something so much before.

“You want to go somewhere?” Gil offers. “To the river?” He smiles whimsically. “See if those rocks are still there?”

I smile, sniff out a laugh. “Sure. Why not?”

Gil starts the engine and pulls out of the train station. As we drive along, I see this fella off the side of the road. He has a dirty face, and he’s dressed in overalls. He’s carving something into a tree. Something inside me twists and burns.

“Your family’s vacation house,” I say. “You said it’s by the beach?”

“Well not right on it but close by.” Gil takes a left. “It’s private, too. There’s a hedge around it.” He taps his thumbs on the steering wheel, his voice a knowing tone. “Dad keeps the keys in his study. I was gonna swing by later. Visit with my sisters.”

I turn in my seat to look back at the guy carving on the tree. “How long would we…I have?”

“We usually go up in July. Right around the fourth.”

“And you said there’s cleaning people that come by?”

“Yeah. Couple times a month.” He pauses, looks in the rear view. “There’s a phone. So, if you needed a warning or something…” He slows the car to a stop. He does a three-point turn in the middle of the road, and starts driving us away from the river. “The housekeeper lady, she’s real nice. She wouldn’t say nothing to my momma if you said you were friends with me.”

We’re quiet for a time, as he drives towards the more flashy neighborhoods. I wish for pen and paper as I try to sketch it all out in my mind. What goes where and when; who and how; days, time, money.

“You’d have to bring your own food,” Gil says casually. “That’s the only thing, really. Your own food and clothes and what-not.” He pulls into a long driveway shaded by enormous willows. “But everything else you’d need is there.”

“So, July. We’d have until July?”

He parks the car in front of the Upton mansion, and it’s just as glorious as I expected. There’s a wraparound porch with tall columns and a balcony off the second floor, round and painted white. In its heyday, this house hosted all sorts of balls and cotillions. The Uptons settled on the side of Montgomery where there’s natural springs and, way back when, lots of wild game for hunting. The wide fields behind the mansion have all been cut up, parceled out, and sold to developers over the years. The Uptons of the twentieth century made a new fortune just by selling and leasing property. It’s a wonder Gil’s family doesn’t have dozens of vacation homes.

I look up at the house. Too bad this is probably the only time I’ll ever see it.

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” Gil says. “You’re welcome to come in.”

I’m curious, but I shake my head. “I’ll wait out here.”

He puts his hand on the door, then turns to me. “You’re still gonna graduate with us, right? No running off and leaving without saying goodbye?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” I smile. “And it’s not really goodbye, right? I mean, you’ll know where to find me.”

Gil looks at me for a long moment or so. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” He gives me a sad smile before getting out of his car. I watch the back of him until he’s at the door. He turns to look at me, an expression on his face I can’t quite place, before he goes inside.

* * *

I find Randy outside in the crepe myrtles.

He’s pacing and circling around them, hands bunched into fists. He doesn’t seem to hear me approaching even though I’m doing nothing to be quiet. I’ve caught him right before he has a fit and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

“Hey,” I say, and he whips his head over to me. “Can I talk to you? Before you…do that?”

His fists unclench slightly and his expression opens.

“Um,” I begin, unsure. “Can we - can we go inside?”

He shakes his head.

“Okay.” I lean against one of the trees, feeling it tall against my back. I need it, that sturdy hardness tethering me to the earth. “Listen. I’m sorry, first of all, for dinner the other night. I wasn’t really thinking about if you would be there or what you’d see. I wanted to talk to momma and dad, and I got all frustrated with them because they weren’t listening and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you saw all of… _that._ ”

There’s a bit of fear in me that one day Randy will do something that makes our father angry. That dad would slam him against a wall or punch him in the face for mouthing off or coming home late. And that bit of fear that Randy might have to take any wrath from our father on account of me is the last piece of thread that holds me here and won’t let me leave just yet. I have to tell him, I have to let him know.

Randy’s expression doesn’t really change so I press forward.

“And I’m also sorry,” I feel my throat getting tight, and I swallow, “for any trouble I might cause you. Later. Um…for what people might say to you. How they might treat you. Because I have to leave here, Randy. This isn’t my home.”

His brows furrow, but he says nothing.

“You might not understand all this now, and I honestly don’t know what you do and don’t understand. And I don’t know what momma and dad are going to tell you, but…” I let that hang for a handful of seconds and my heart is racing. How could talking to him be any worse than anyone else in my family? “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry, and to hear it from me.”

Randy sticks his hands in his pockets and looks down, shuffles his feet.

“And anyway, I just wanted to talk to you before I lost the chance.” I pause. “I hope you don’t hate me one day, but if you have to, it’s okay. I’ll understand.”

I wait a few beats, in case he wants to say something. I’m not sure if he gets it. If he even knows what a _homosexual_ is; what it means to be a boy and love another boy. What am I supposed to tell him?

And I feel a tiny tug at my heartstrings. If there’s anyone I’d stay in Montgomery for, it would be him. Defend him from bullies, from our father, and give him advice. But he’s got Tanner. Tanner will be good to him, so Randy doesn’t really need me. It almost makes me feel as if I’m growing transparent by the second, like a ghost, fading into the ether of this yard, this home, a figment of everyone’s imagination.

“Well.” I turn to go. “Just wanted to say that.”

I walk off, then I hear him behind me, running. He stops right in front of me, looking up at me. “Uh…,” he jumps from foot to foot, “can I sleep in your room when you leave?”

“Yeah. You can sleep in my room.”

“Okay.” He puts his hands in his pockets and nods like we just made a business deal. Then he bites his lip. “I won’t mess it up. I promise.”

“I know.”

“Good,” he nods all serious again. “Good.”

We stand there for a minute, and I get ready to go back inside when he says, “Don’t worry, Gene. I’m not ever going to hate you. Not even for a little while.”

“I hope you’re right about that.”

I don’t want him to see me getting all emotional or anything, so I go back into the house where I can properly fade away into the woodwork, like a ghost.

And leave my little brother with this memory of me and him today. It gives me a little bit more courage, ironically.

And Randy follows me back inside, just a few steps behind, hands still in his pockets, no longer ready to have a fit.

* * *

I drop one of the keys into the envelope.

Then I change my mind, dump it out on my desk, and put the folded up letter in first. It’s four notebook pages, nearly all front and back, and even that doesn’t feel like enough. I put the key in between the pages, nestled in there safely. Then I just yank the letter out again to check for the tenth time that Finny will know where to go. The address, the name of the beach, the train times, and, yes, the key.

_If_ he goes.

Isn’t this what I did last time? Asked him to meet me somewhere? And that didn’t turn out so well now did it? But it’s different this time. We’ll both graduate from school, have our diplomas, and we can plan. Or I can plan. We’ll have cash and clothes and a place to stay. We’ll be fine, better than last time.

_If_ he goes.

I don’t want to consider the possibility, and if he doesn’t, isn’t that just what I deserve? And _if_ he doesn’t, _if_ he’s decided that I’m not worth it - and I’ve written this all down - I have a plan for that situation, too. I’ll go to Boston and stand outside his bedroom window and throw rocks. I’ll beg and plead on my knees. And if that’s it, if I’ve blown this to smithereens, then it’s back to Virginia to lick my wounds. Not Montgomery, never Montgomery, and I suppose I’ll find work and a boarding house of some kind so I can be out of Gil’s family home before July. It’ll be Independence Day when I find my own independence.

But this is all conjecture; a Plan D. One that in my highest of hopes, I will never have to worry about.

I seal the envelope up good so there’s no way the key can fall out. I test it. I shake it around, hold it upside down, add more tape, then drop it in the mailbox. The mail gets slower every day, so best case, he gets it by Friday. Even better he calls, or sends a telegram, so I know that he did. This distance between us, the difficulty to communicate, it could drive anybody mad. Make anybody desperate.

I sit on my bed as my bedroom gets darker, the day getting older. I suppose now all I have to do is wait. And graduate from St. Paul’s. That will be the one thing my father gets out of me. I will give him that. If only just because he’s my father.

I sit there and look out the window until my bedroom is nearly black, the light of a half-moon coming in. In the distance, I hear a train whistle and every inch of my skin pulls tight. Gradually, so I don’t really realize it at first, this hum, this vibration starts to course through me. In anticipation and hope. In pieces, in compartments, I become detached from my surroundings. From the bed underneath me, the four walls, the Tobias floors, the haunted bathtub, and the hateful gaze of Missouri Minerva.

I shrug off my father’s rage, my mother’s dismissive words, I leave the scene running without me, and within me, a memory to take root and one day shrivel.

I shed it like skin, like layers, falling behind me as I run, run, run.

Diving in, head first.

* * *

_June 1943_

There’s a hole in the seat.

I keep pushing my finger into it as if it’s a wound I’m trying to reopen. I pull at the vinyl and dig my finger into the foam and wonder idly how it’s made. Did someone in a factory in the heartland make this seat? Did he think about what he was doing? Like really think about it? Then I wonder if I could do that. If I could put seats together for trains and think of myself as a success.

I look out the window at the passing landscape and know there is no turning back now. There is no way I can undo what I have just undone.

Althea stayed up all night with me, like a vigil.

She was the only one awake when I left my home for the final time. I had my clothes packed days ago. Christmas money hidden in a sock and a few other valuables. Althea wanted me to have her pearls, but I just outright refused. I doubt she’s found it yet, but I put the money I owe her in the top drawer of her vanity. I got it from two days of shelving books in the St. Paul’s library.

Everyone else was asleep when I left. The house quiet in the early morning hours, the time when the world seems to be holding its breath. She was on the porch as I walked away to the train station, carrying all my worldly possessions. I didn’t want to cry, I fought back tears, because I don’t know when I’ll see her again. She knows where I’ll be, at least until next month. I don’t know where she’ll be in New York yet, but she says Bridget has a spinster aunt up there somewhere.

We’re going to be two Forrester kids lost in a big wide world.

But at least we’ll be lost at the same time.

So maybe we can be found at the same time.

I wear a cap when I ride the train so no one can see my face, and I keep my head down. I’m ready to give a fake name to anyone that asks. Ready lie my ass off about where I’m from and where I’m going. Where I’ve been. Anything. Everything.

The enormity, the time, the planning, the people involved who hold my secrets, hasn’t hit me yet. I’m sure it will. I’m sure it will hit me like a freight train that I am a St. Paul’s graduate on the lam; a Montgomery boy waving proper society goodbye.

And I’ll find out soon if I won’t be alone. I haven’t heard a word from him since I sent that letter. I might as well have mailed it into an abyss. A quiet abyss that gave me time, gave me what I wanted, when I should have been returning the sacrifice he was willing to offer me.

Is this enough?

Please, God. Let it be enough.

The landscape in the windows change, flatten, and I can see a blue line of ocean far off.

I wipe my sweating hands on my pants, I take a breath.

I try to remember that I’m simply going home.

* * *

I considered getting a cab at the train station, but I end up walking.

My breath heaves in and out of my nose, hot and too fast as I walk down a road called Beechnut Avenue to a bungalow set off from the street. I see a roof above a tall hedge and a front gate. My heart is pounding as I open the gate and step into the front yard. It’s manicured and mowed. The front of the bungalow has a screened-in porch that opens to a patio on the side. The front door is just inside the porch, and I step onto it delicately, as if I shouldn’t make so much noise.

Before I open the door, I stand there and listen. Is that a radio playing inside or just people down the beach? Did I just hear footsteps or distant crashing waves?

I take a breath and fumble for the key in my pocket. I unlock the door and let it swing open into a dim front room. I step into the doorway and listen.

There’s nothing really. The _tick, tick, tick_ of a clock somewhere. The fading creak of the door. The sound of wind chimes from another bungalow nearby.

“Hello?” I call nervously. “Finny?”

I step onto a mat and see polished wood floors beneath it. I set down one of my bags and respectfully take off my shoes. I look for where there might be another pair of shoes, but there isn’t.

“Finny? It’s me. I’m here.”

My heart pounds so hard I hear it in the quiet. I take my backpack off and set that down, remove the cap and hang it on a doorknob. I walk gingerly through the front room full of plush furniture and green plants. Everything looks like Gil’s whole family was just sitting here, making merry, and just stepped out for a minute. I make my way to the back of the house where there’s a full kitchen, huge dining room table, and a back door that leads out to a sunny balcony that overlooks the beach. I turn down a hallway and find three nice bedrooms and two full bathrooms.

All of them empty.

“Finny.”

The tears appear out of nowhere and it seems fitting. History’s vicious cycle, a Forrester boy crying in an Upton boy’s house. I look for more rooms or doors, all while saying his name, but there’s no answer.

And then I panic.

What if he got the key and all, and was on his way, but the train wrecked?

What if he got here, but something happened? He got lost or went swimming and drowned? That’s something he’d do - go swimming or running. He wouldn’t just wait around. He’d go do something like that. He would go out and explore and what if that’s when something happened? Oh God, would some crook rob him, hold him up with a gun? What if he got lost? What if he got hurt?

_What if…maybe…if, if, if, if…_

I collapse heavily on a chair in the front room. It sinks softly beneath me. I try to think about what to do. Maybe he’s still on his way. Or…if he told his folks, did something happen with them? Did they drag him off to an asylum? Are they sending cops after me right now for molesting their son?

My brain whirs like a fan on the highest speed, unable to catch a blade of thought long enough. I wipe the tears, and let it settle in bit by bit that none of those things happened. Not one.

This is Finny’s answer.

This is it.

Final.

He gave up on me, and why wouldn’t he? He gave up -

The back door slams.

I whip my head over and see a figure standing there by the kitchen counter, holding a paper bag. They put something in their pocket then walk across the floor until they see me. I jump up and it startles them. They drop the bag and two apples fall out and roll across the floor.

I see emerald eyes wide and mouth agape as Finny stands over the spilled bag.

“Gene?” He peers at me, then moves toward me. “Gene. What’s wrong?”

There are still tears on my face. I don’t even bother to brush them away. An apple rolls over and touches the end of my shoe.

He stops a few feet away, hesitating, as if making sure it’s okay. “Are you all right?”

Really? Is he really such a good soul that he’s concerned about _me_? After all I’ve put him through, after all I’ve asked of him, here he is acting as if none of it ever happened, coming to me with care and sincerity. I exhale harshly and it comes out a strangled sob.

“When I got here…,” I stammer, “you weren’t here…it was empty, I didn’t see your shoes, or your stuff…so I thought…”

“I’m sorry.” He inches closer. “I went to the store to get some food. There’s one just a couple blocks away. And you said in the letter sometimes cleaning people come here, so I thought I should put my stuff under the bed so they won’t see it. You know, just in case.”

The tears are still coming, but for a different reason.

His voice goes so soft. “You really thought I wouldn’t come?”

It’s the simplest of questions, if you think about it. I’ve got an easy answer, ready and waiting, and he looks genuinely surprised, confused by any doubt I could have. I always seem to forget the simpleness in which he views this world. Not simple as in stupid, but as simple as: you love someone, you be with them. Simple like: you want to jump off a tree, you climb to the top and let go. You simply want to run and swim to beat records, then you simply run and swim your hardest. He makes it so easy. Everything in his life has been a verb. A matter of presence and devotion; making the decision and following through.

And here he is now, so damn beautiful, so damn devoted, and simply bewildered that I would believe in anything less.

In two long strides, I’m at him, fisting his shirt, pressing our mouths together, he melts against me, and he’s kissing me so hard, his hands grabbing, teeth nipping, we attack each other in the best way, hardly coming up for air. I’m in such a stupor, such a state, heady and unbelieving, as I kiss him everywhere I see skin. And then he grabs my head, his palms on my cheeks, and looks at me as I do the same to him.

He blinks, his eyes swimming. He keeps sucking in his lips, pursing them, like he’s busting to say something but all he says, so simple and easy: “Gene.”

I want to laugh, hysterical with joy. “Finny.”

“It’s you, pal,” he whispers. “Just you and me.”

And it’s true. Nothing has ever been so true. Always and 4ever, just me and him. I want to laugh it out loud, sing it, shout it.

And in those emerald eyes I find where I belong, I find my home, I find where I am born, and where I will die.

* * *

**Epilogue**

_Norfolk, VA_

_October 1945_

I wait on the dock.

There’s a crowd, and I push through it. I try to get as close as I can, but it won’t be that close. The ship just pulled in and all around the edge, on the upper decks, I can see them. Hundreds, could even be thousands, of sailors waving to everyone around me. Rolled up sleeves and white hats, some take them off to wave them in the air, toss them so high they look like birds. I squint at them, searching, and urge myself through screaming ladies, kids on shoulders, and handkerchiefs, bandannas, stars and stripes flailing every which way.

I can’t see him from this far, and there’s too many fellas up there all crowded around. They haven’t even got the gangplank down yet for the sailors to disembark, but already some look as if they’re going to leap from the upper deck right onto this dock. Broken legs be damned.

It seems like they all have to wait for something. And so we all wait and people are looking, craning their necks, shouting out names. Searching for fathers, brothers, and husbands. I actually wish I was small enough to be perched on some big guy’s shoulders. I didn’t wear anything to stand out, and I should have. I blend in. Just a regular old guy. Nothing special.

Once they get the gangplank down from the ship to the dock, it seems like forever. Someone behind me mutters, “what are they waitin’ for anyway?” and some kid sneezes and I hear another one squawking for his daddy. And for a handful of seconds, the time it takes for a cloud to shift shape and never be the same again, there’s this hush. Everyone takes in a breath at the same time. Everyone lunges one step forward and then here they come. Duffel bags on shoulders in a venerable parade. They come down that plank in twos and threes. They can’t wait to get off that damn ship.

It’s the _S.S. Omaha_. I know it well. I know it because I helped build it. I helped weld that water-tight hull. The railing on the sides. The gun racks and cannon. Burning steel and dirty hands, aching back, and sweating, and cussing. That’s what it takes to build a ship, let me tell you what. There’s no blood, there’s no tears, but there’s a lot of sweat. I cleaned myself up this morning. Wore my very best. And still. He won’t see me if I stand here like this. I have to do something. I have to move.

So, I push and push through the thick bodies around me, everyone presses inward and outward, there’s hardly any room. Today is a big deal. I don’t see them, but I know the press is here. People will want to see this, they’ll want to be here; everyone keeps saying today is historic. The _S. S. Omaha_ is one of the last ones. The _Tennessee_ and the _Cowell_ both came home to Florida just last week; Fort Lauderdale and West Palm, respectively. I saw the news reels and it looked a lot like this, only there were palm trees and lots of kissing. One fella swept this girl right off her feet, literally, swung her in the air and the cameras caught it in brilliant flashes. It was in the papers and no one even knew their names. From Toronto, to London, to Dublin, they were everywhere, and they probably don’t even know just how famous they are.

I get as close to the front as I can. There’s some naval officers and local cops holding people back, some half-assed attempt at order. They’re not trying that hard, honestly. I stand as tall as I can, peer over heads, and I wonder if he’ll even recognize me. Will I recognize him? Neither of us could possibly be that much different. But I feel it, on the inside looking out. I feel like a thirty-year-old man trapped in a nineteen-year-old’s body. Ready for work, prime of my life, gung-ho, but oh-so-tired.

There’s this flicker in the corner of my eye, and I turn my head. I see a guy walking down from the dock, back and forth across the crowd as sailors run into it and sweep ladies off their feet, pick up little girls and boys, their legs just kicking, their voices squealing. Somebody elbows me in the ribs and upper arm. There’s tears and hugs and this guy keeps walking back and forth, back and forth.

I catch his profile and raise both my hands, waving. I cup both hands around my mouth, ready to shout for him, but like a magnet, like mindedness, he turns his head and two emeralds laser into me as if I’m on a ship’s red radar screen. He waits a beat, maybe he’s making sure it’s really me, then he comes toward me. I get some space around me, breathing room, and he pushes through, and there he is, come back from some world unknown. Uncharted territory. Bermuda triangle. He’s this exotic creature, and I try to find the one I know underneath.

I did worry that he wouldn’t come off the ship. I did worry that somebody somewhere was mistaken and, in fact, Phineas Garrison Pell was lost at sea. They’d made a mistake, and I’d be standing here in vain. I’d be standing here at sunset in a littering of confetti, flags, and trampled hats. I’d be standing here at sunrise while gulls dip into the waves and some poor schmuck comes in to sweep up all the trash.

He heaves his duffel bag from his shoulder to the dock. I notice his shoulders are broader, hips slimmer. The hair above his ears is cut close and lighter. The skin around his eyes has freckled. His face has lost the fresh-scrubbed boyishness I last saw, the one I memorized with my lips and fingers in private, our last night together one year ago. I wanted to beg him to ignore that beckoning finger from old Uncle Sam and just stay.

_Stay_. Duty be damned, and look at me. You’re leaving me all alone, and what if you don’t come back? I’ll come back, he said. You’ll see, Gene, I’ll come back to you just like I am now. Nothing different. Nothing wrong, and we’ll be just like we are now. I promise you this. Nothing can keep us apart, don’t you know this by now? He held me in his arms and I swore to God, up and down, and cross my heart and hope to die, I wouldn’t cry. He went away, and for the longest time, I looked at it like God was getting me back. I made Finny wait on me, so now I have to wait on him. And so I worked on these ships like he would be on each and every one. I didn’t let a single imperfection past me. I lifted, and welded, and climbed, and hammered like I was building it all for him.

Not bad for a “cripple.”

Realistically, though, it took thousands of us in three round-the-clock shifts. In the photographs, we look like ants on a toy boat. That’s what the fellas from MGM said, with their gleaming teeth and weak handshakes. There was this meet-and-greet thing last winter and they brought in Shirley Temple and Carey Grant. It was supposed to be Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, but that didn’t work out. I heard it had something to do with the plane. No service to LA, or something like that. Shirley wore white gloves and Carey wore pinstripes. Somebody hollered at Shirley to do a tap dance and she just giggled. She hasn’t outgrown her dimples, but she doesn’t dance anymore. She just got married like a month ago. If I were a guy cut from a different cloth, I’d be in love with her.

They didn’t say much. They smiled at us and shook some hands - not mine - and they were whisked away before anyone could ask for an autograph. I wondered if anyone back home would see the news reel and say: _Look, it’s Gene! He’s on the big screen! It’s Gene Forrester and look at him up there! Doesn’t he look swell?_ And then someone else might say, _Yeah, but he’s some kind fag, didn’t you hear? Look away, look away, for Gene Forrester is a disgrace!_

And in my disgrace, I find the eyes of Finny on me as if we’re crossing the courtyard at Devon, walking upon each other in the daylight. I feel as if it happened nine lifetimes ago, like we’re cats. I search those eyes and think of all the letters, arriving haphazardly, as priorities changed and the ship’s mail duties fell by the wayside. There were Nazis in the air, Nazis in the sea, and now there’s Nazis under a heap of rubble and reckoning. Nobody was thinking about how that disgraceful fag, Gene Forrester, needed to hear from his lover floating far, far away on the ocean.

Finny clamps a heavy hand on my shoulder and I do the same to him. It’s the best and most proper thing we can manage in this crowd. But I can see it in his eyes and I say it back. I say: _I know, I know, Finny. Me too._

_Me. Too._

I see his nostrils flare, his chin trembles, weak. We could hug and no one would know or care. It’s the spirit of the thing and we can be just as caught up in it as anyone else, but I point my head to the side and say, “Come on.”

He picks up the duffel bag and we push through the people, inching through, turning to the side to weave around. For the first time I hear the band. Crashing cymbals and a trumpeting march, fanfare and celebration. It fades as we make our way over to the marina and I find us one of the cabs, all lined up in anticipation. As soon as we’re inside, the driver is just gushing. He keeps looking at Finny in the rear view - not the road, mind you - and there’s crinkles in the corners of his eyes. He’s full of praise and gratitude. Finny accepts it, nods his head, smiles.

Our legs touch, and I feel him pressing his knee into mine. The thick bone poking, an assurance, a message. Beside him now, in the close space and almost alone, I gather a keen awareness of just how long it’s been. He’s bigger, I think. Or has he always looked like this? Broad and tall, like a Grecian column, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he lays them on his thighs. The pinky of his right hand rubs on the deep blue gabardine, nails clipped all the way to the quick. I want to feel them in my hand, rub my thumb over each one like I’m polishing it. I want him to be like new. I notice a scent to him of official order, of hardness around his edges because he’s lost his summer. He’s sea salt, starched, and ivory soap.

I pay the driver when we arrive. He keeps yapping and Finny lingers at the window, duffel bag on his back, saying, “Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. Yes, I appreciate it.” He starts to back away and the cab driver nods, gets the hint, and says goodbye.

Finny follows me up the stairs and I unlock the door. Once inside, I hang my keys on the hook. In the entryway, we stand close and it’s dimmer than outside. I have the one diamond-shaped window on the door, then the one window beside the bed. I can hear both of us breathing in that space. He sets the bag down with a thump.

I glance into my one room with the tiny bathroom and kitchen. I offer him a tour. He shrugs, his eyes roaming all over my face.

“It’s not much,” I say. “I actually made the bed this morning.”

“Look at you,” he says. “Gene Forrester making his own bed.”

I needed some adjusting after how I was raised. It was the one thing I wouldn’t do for him while he was gone. I wanted him to have something to do when he came back. I wanted us to keep those old habits.

But today was different, special.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks.

I look at him, perplexed.

He shifts, leans one shoulder against the doorway to the kitchen. “I’m just being polite.”

I lean towards him, lay a hand on his upper arm, fingers clutching, the muscle hard and smooth and all mine. “I don’t want you to be polite.”

He kisses me with the force of a torpedo, knocking me back two steps. We stumble our way inside, over to the bed, backing each other up against the wall, lips and tongues dueling, teeth nipping. My hands come around his head, knocking his white hat to the floor. We fall onto the bed, bounce, and I’m on my back, his knees straddling my hips as he tears off his uniform, my shirt, belts come unbuckled, he has to fall off me onto his back to get his pants off, and we’re nearly naked, just in our underpants, when he perches over me again and pauses there, his eyes looking down into mine.

I feel like I should say something. The landlady, Mrs. Romani, lives downstairs. She’s hard of hearing, turns her radio up way loud sometimes, and I have to pound on her door like a cop busting in for a raid to get her to answer. She won’t hear us. She won’t even know I’m home. And not alone.

He leans down and kisses me softly, tenderly. The corners of my eyes sting and my throat swells. I scoot back on the bed so my legs don’t dangle, and he stretches out over me, sliding one leg in between both of mine. My hands explore him, starting at his shoulders, I caress my way down his back, and he’s harder, rougher. There’s dips and bumps in his skin that wasn’t there before. His hand pauses on my chest, grips my flesh. He’s exploring, too, and that hand makes its way down over my stomach. He stops kissing me and rubs his nose against mine. We lay our foreheads together, just breathing for a minute.

“What?” I whisper.

“You feel different,” he says.

“So do you.”

He kisses the corner of my mouth, the breath from his nose on my cheek. “The shipyards, huh?”

“Mopping up the ship deck, huh?”

I feel him smile against my cheek. “You’re looking at a bona fide Chief Petty Officer, sir. No such stuff for this fella.”

I nuzzle into his cheek. “Did you make some poor guy walk the plank?”

“Nah. Just sword fight all those pirates.”

I wiggle and maneuver the blankets underneath me and think maybe I shouldn’t have tried to impress him by making the bed. There was really no point. I lift my hips into his, and he groans softly into my neck, as I pull the flimsy blankets over us, getting us nice and nestled in. The covering moves us forward. He tugs my underpants down the same time I do it to him and I feel our feet, tangled, kicking, and pushing the clothing away. The scent of heated skin, raw and earthy, comes up from between us. He kisses me again, reaching down, and takes both of us in his hand.

I groan and jerk my hips into his touch. The palm of his hand is rougher and I like it. He’s heavier on top of me and I missed being under his weight. He’s stroking us like he’s practiced, like he’s thought about it, and he puts his mouth by my ear and says simply, easily. “Gene.”

He doesn’t hurry through it, and I kiss him like we can finally start now. We can finally begin. This whole time, for the past three years, the two of us have waited. He waited on me to fall in love with him, I waited on him to graduate from Devon, he waited on me to leave Montgomery, and we waited for this blasted war to end. There’s nothing else, there’s no one else, there’s now, there’s here, there’s the sound of our breaths and pants and groans in this tiny room.

He’ll stop kissing me for a few seconds, pull his head back to look at me, and I’ll sink mine into the pillow to look at him. We need to do this, I think. To make sure this is really real; that he’s really above me and I’m really below him, like it should be, the right way, the position.

I stutter in his ear that I’m close. He rests his head on my shoulder and works us faster. I arch my head back and get a glimpse of the sky covered in clouds right before I feel him spilling on my stomach and chest, and then I come right after.

He rests on top of me, sticky and sweaty, taking my hand and kissing my palm over and over while we catch our breath. We lay that way for a long, long time. We sink into the mattress, the blankets, I think we doze off for a few minutes. He gets up and goes into the bathroom, shuts the door. He comes out with a towel, cleans me off and himself. He gets back into bed and lays behind me, one arm draping over my side, the other tucked under our heads.

“I think it’s gonna rain,” I say.

“It might.” He breathes onto my neck.

I turn my head to him slightly. His eyes are closed. “There’s a diner, couple of blocks away, that I go to in the mornings sometimes.”

“Mmm.”

“Mrs. Romani likes to make us dinner. But with all the rationing she only makes like three things.”

“I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in so long…God…you have no idea.”

“No, I don’t.”

He pulls me closer to him, his chin tucked into my shoulder. “Have you heard from anybody?” His voice is light, but careful.

“No.”

“Not even Althea?”

“Well, besides her.”

I have a letter from Tanner, tucked away in a dresser drawer. He sent it eight months ago. He just wanted to tell me he got married and Gil Upton was missing. He made Gloria a Forrester and Gil Upton went missing on Okinawa. I sobbed with the letter crumpled in one hand, my tears smudging the ink, my prayers an incoherent bunch of sounds. Later, Mrs. Romani knocked on my door. I wouldn’t answer it, but she spoke through the door, invited me downstairs for cake. I almost didn’t go, but I did. I sat at her kitchen table and she served me a slice of coffee cake with a glass of milk. Tears rolled down my cheeks, like this endless supply of salt water in my eyes, and she just sat with me, patted my hand. I apologized so much, I didn’t think she heard me, and she just shook her head and patted my hand.

Downstairs, I hear her radio cut on at full volume and General Eisenhower’s voice comes up through the floorboards. The room darkens a little as rain begins pecking at the window. I close my eyes and listen to it. I settle into the moment of having Finny wrapped around me in this way. Of all the nights I’d dreamed about this, and prayed he’d come home safe and in one piece. I don’t deserve to have my prayers answered. My life will forever be a long tight-rope walk.

“Hey,” I whisper, turning my head to him. “I really missed you, you know?” My voice trembles. A tear leaks out before I can stop it.

“I really missed you, too. You know?” His voice cracks at the end with a vulnerability and he wraps his arm around me, tight.

Then we’re eye to eye and he sniffles and we say it at the same time: “Sap.” We snicker and I kiss him above his ear, where his hair is cut short. I feel a tear fall onto my shoulder.

I think of all the people that watched that ship pull in and waited and waited and their sailor didn’t come off it. The people who got telegrams from the Department of Defense. The ones who wait on front porches for their boys to come up the front walk.

And I’m not like them, and I’m so grateful.

Because mine came home to be with me.

* * *

I try to give Finny some privacy while he’s on the phone.

Mrs. Romani keeps it in the downstairs hall. She can’t always hear it, so I usually have to answer it for her and yell at her who it is. I lean against the wall with a cigarette and hear all his one word answers and long pauses. I already know, long before he hangs up.

Finny sets the phone back on the hall table and leans across from me, lighting up a cigarette. He’s all showered and dressed in denim and a button down. The shirt stays tucked in, I notice.

“Are they coming?” I ask him.

“No.” He exhales.

“What did they say?”

“Just that they’d like to see me. They’ll buy the ticket.” He shrugs. “I didn’t even expect that.”

I put my cigarette out in the ashtray and we exit the house, walk down the sidewalk. We’re almost a block from the house before I can make myself say it: “Maybe you should go. And wear your uniform so they can see you in it.”

“I’m not going without you,” he replies with a note of finality. “It’s both of us or neither of us. I’ve told them.”

His parents were hurt, mostly. Hurt and confused. Concerned that Finny had been influenced, that I’d done something to him to make him this way. His mother found a psychiatrist to treat him and begged him to come home. I understood that pull, that temptation. His mother told him Tabitha was asking for him. He kept refusing, insisting I come home with him, too. That just scares me. His family is different than mine. I’ve had actual nightmares about his mother, a woman I’ve literally never met, wringing her hands, calling for her son, and I’ve stolen him away; tucked him up under my wicked black cloak like some god-awful villain. Those dreams frighten me, and I wake up and smoke half a pack before dawn.

We eat at the diner. He’s not in uniform, but people can still tell from his haircut, his stance, and there’s just something about him - clean, orderly, and all-American. The waitress lays a flirty hand on his shoulder as she sets a plate of peach pie in front of him. I bunch my hands under the table as this old fella at the counter makes a show of paying for Finny’s meal. Not mine, of course, because we couldn’t possibly be together or anything. But I’m hurt because I wanted to make that gesture myself. With my money. Money I earned all on my own, not a dirty hand-me-down stained with contempt.

We idly walk back, enjoying the afternoon. The neighborhood has a nice feel to it. I noticed that the day I rented the room. All I’d wanted was a room, a single room, nothing special for no one special. So I found the duplex when I couldn’t hack the rent at our last place, talk-yelled at Mrs. Romani, and said I’d pay her for the little space upstairs.

“There’s a creek over there,” I point and Finny looks. “It runs all through here. Gets really big when it rains.”

He raises his brows in mild interest, looking where I’m pointing. I stride towards it, overcome with the desire to show him, impress him with something, and he follows me. But when I get to the bank and stand there, I’m disappointed with it. It’s just water, flowing water, with trees around it. I was hoping I could show him something better. I look around for maybe some little rapids or some wildlife, worried at how stupid this was, but when I glance over at him, he’s looking around with a smile.

His gaze falls on me. “It’s nice. It’s peaceful.”

All the sudden I’m overwhelmingly touched that he’s so pleased. And I want to see him this way all the time, I never want that look to go away, and my heart just fills and fills with all the things that I can do to make sure he stays just as happy as he is right now, all the things I can give, for the rest of my life, to make him this happy.

I look around us. We’re several feet from the sidewalk and road, tucked into a grove by the creek. I pull him into the shade of a tree, his smile fading and his eyes turning serious, and his back is against the tree and I get close to him. I lay my hand over his breastbone, my palm flat, my fingers stretched. Under it I feel the reassuring pump of blood, lifeblood, heat and flesh.

He blinks a few times, he watches my face, but I don’t move, I don’t want to break it. He slips a hand over mine and for the longest time we just stand that way. There’s so much I can say, so many words forming and fading, but in the quiet, like all those phone calls we use to have, in the silence I know him best.

And he knows me.

* * *

There’s a slip of paper under my door when we get back.

I open it to see Mrs. Romani’s familiar cursive. A Mrs. Bell called and wanted me to call her back. I feel a spike of anxiety. The feeling I got when a teacher wanted to see me. I know Mrs. Romani was mistaken when she heard the name. And that Mrs. “Bell” wasn’t calling to speak to me.

“You got a message,” I say, handing the paper to Finny. “I should tell Mrs. Romani you’ll be staying here. Introduce you.”

Finny takes the paper and stares at it. He tucks it in his pocket. “Do we have to stay here?”

I wander into the little kitchen for no reason. “No. I reckon not. Just for now, she should know you’re here.”

My hands are shaking. Finny’s mother has my phone number. She knows something about me. Other than I’m some disgraceful fag that corrupted her son. In my mind’s eye, she’s the complete opposite of my own mother. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t swear, and raised her children with warm embraces and stern, but fair, rules. And now he’s refusing to see her, his own mother, on account of me.

Finny stands in the kitchen doorway, hands braced on the sides. He’s so broad and tall now. Jealous Gene of another time would’ve hated it. Hated those shoulders, envied him those arms, and that jaw so sharp I could cut my finger on it. And compared to me, Finny is certainly heroic and handsome, but it’s not envy that makes me feel so deflated as I take in the sight of him.

“We should look for a bigger place,” he says thoughtfully. “I have some pay coming. It won’t be much, but it will help.”

“Yeah.” I look down at my shoes. I wore my nice ones. The ones I brought with me when I left home. They’ve dulled over time, the shine just isn’t the same.

“I was thinking like a two bedroom.” He comes into the kitchen and leans back on the counter across from me. “Just in case your sister or somebody wants to come visit.”

I would be, more or less, embarrassed for Althea to visit me now. I don’t know why. She’s doing well. She has a job as a secretary. Her and Bridget live in some apartment building specifically for single girls and they’ve aroused no suspicions. She seems happy, busy, an Alabama girl in the big city. I miss her like crazy, but I’d be ashamed for her to see how I live.

“Maybe,” I say. “Do you want, um, do you want something to drink or -?” Tears start coming down my face and I’m so mad. I’m such an awful sap. “I can make coffee. I know how. Mrs. Romani taught me.” Finny slowly moves over to me. “Scramble eggs, make tea.” He puts a hand on either side of me, caging me in, his forehead rests against mine. “I can do stuff. I can do a lot.”

My eyes close and I feel his breath on my skin when he says, “I told you I’d come back.”

I inhale a shaking breath. “It wasn’t that I was scared you wouldn’t come back. I was scared you wouldn’t come back to _me._ ” The tears keep coming, and I’m hopeless to stop them. “And should you? Shouldn’t you go home and be with your family? Why come back here and into this shitty room with me?”

“Because I want to.”

“You should go see your folks. Your sister. They miss you, I’m sure, and I just took you from them.”

He pulls back a little to look me in the eye, but I avoid his gaze, trying in vain to wipe my face.

“Nothing can keep me from you,” he says.

“Except a war.”

“Which is over now. And even that didn’t keep me from thinking of you everyday, writing you when I could, or knowing exactly where I was going when it was over. I don’t need to go home. Because _you_ are my home.”

I put my arms around him. “You’re my home, too.” I struggle for a minute. “But you need to go to your family. Let them see you. I mean, I’d kill to have my folks care that much that they call me, write me.”

It’s a struggle, an ache, because there’s no guarantee if he goes that he’ll come back. My family makes me want to leave, but his are the kind of people that make you want to stay.

His fingers come up to my face, brushing across my cheeks, and I turn away, so humiliated that I’m behaving this way. It’s his first day back, on land, and with me, and I’m being like this.

“The only way,” he says firmly, “that I am going back there is if you come with me. Period. No way around it. I meant that, Gene. I’m not going home without you.”

I grit my teeth. “Just a visit. I’d pay for it. Round trip.” My heart pounds, and I cling to him tighter. “Just let them see you, please.”

His eyes flicker from my face for a second, and he seems to consider it. It would be torture for me, not knowing if he’ll really return. What if Tabitha cries, begs him to stay? She’s thirteen now and I’ve seen her letters to him. She writes like a five year old, all large and her e’s are all backwards, but it’s clear she misses him. She isn’t able to understand why he’s left and won’t come back. He’s too good to turn his back on that little girl and his mother a second time.

“How about this,” he says after a minute. “How about we find somewhere halfway between here and Boston and I tell them to meet us there. And you and me will go. It will be their choice whether they come or not.”

I loosen my grip on him a little. “If they know I’m with you, they won’t show up.”

“Then so be it. We compromised and gave them a shot, right?”

I shake my head. “Finny…”

He steps back from me. “Look, I love my family. I do. And I miss them. But you’re my family, too. You were the reason I opened my eyes on my worst days out there. And there were plenty. It’s the worst to be crammed together with all those other guys and feel like you’re all alone. And I felt alone because I wasn’t with you.”

I don’t know why I’m so suspicious; why I can’t trust in what he says. I feel as if I’m waiting for something to happen. Something to show me that what I did before, making him wait, doubting, and avoiding, and hurting him isn’t over and justice is coming.

Isn’t it enough that he was dragged away to serve in the war? Isn’t it enough that I agonized over every unanswered letter and crumbled at the worry and wonder when this would all be over?

And here it is, ended. And here he is, home. And still…I can’t shake it. I can’t ignore that nagging voice that I won’t be enough for him. That he’ll regret this, just wait and see, and I’ll wake up to find him gone.

I straighten myself up, pull myself together. “All right. Tell them we’ll meet them halfway. I’ll pay for a hotel room or a berth on a Raleigh if they want it.”

He takes my hand, presses it to his mouth. “I want them to love you as much as I do. I want them to see the boy that jumped off of trees with me, that -”

“Broke his leg like an idiot -”

“Broke his leg so I could take care of him.” He grins, then his expression fades into solemn reverence. “And left his entire family, his whole life, his inheritance, to be with me.” He pauses. “I don’t know how they wouldn’t see how real this is. This,” he puts my hand on his heart, then on mine, “is living, breathing real. And everything I’ve done, I’d do it all over again.”

I tighten my grip in his hand. “Me, too. All over again.”

He kisses me, in that soft way, in that nice way, I’d missed so much. The way that makes the earth shatter under my feet and tugs at the inside of me, weaving it through strong fingers like yarn, to create order, a pattern.

I’m scared to meet his mother, his father. His sister. I’m scared of accusing eyes and disgust. But I remember my vow to make him happy, to see him always by that creek, a face of such content. To see him all the mornings of my life and the evenings. And know all the while this was how it was supposed to be, how it all comes together, to fight for someone.

I break the kiss and whisper for no real reason, “Just you and me.”

“That’s right.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “Just you and me, pal.”

This was how it was supposed to be all along.

There was no other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First - if you are reading this then THANK YOU! Thank you so incredibly much for reading this all the way to the end. Thank you for your support and encouragement. It means a lot. Thank you for your patience through the completely unreliable update schedule and STILL sticking by this story. You have the patience of a saint. 
> 
> Second - I put this in a comment on a previous chapter, but I'll put this out there again: I'm curious to see if there's any interest in a sequel. I mean, I'll probably write one anyway even if there's none, but if you are interested in such, please let me know. I don't know when I'll start writing it or even when the first chapter would go up. I'm actually working on a novel right now, but I do have an idea for a sequel and what potentially happens to Gene and Finny in addition to the other characters....something to think about :)
> 
> Ending this story is bittersweet, tbh. Like I'm glad I finished it, but I'm going to miss it, if that makes any sense. Anyway, have a safe, healthy, and happy rest of 2020 and let's all hope next year is better. xoxoxoxo


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